Subversion 1.7 Eclipse integration in Ubuntu

Getting Subversion 1.7 integration working with Eclipse (3.7.1) and Subclipse 1.8 isn't all that straight-forward because Canonical currently only support the older Javahl-1.6 in their repositories.

If you don't want to switch repo's your best bet is to go with Subclipse 1.6 and the 1.6 version of javahl (and subversion) from the official Canonical Ubuntu repositories.

If you do want to go ahead with SVN 1.7, here's how I got it working by switching to repo's provided by dominik stadler:

1. Add dominik's repository: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dominik-stadler/subversion-1.7
2. Update apt: sudo apt-get update
3. Install libsvn-java: sudo apt-get install libsvn-java
4. Install subversion 1.7: sudo apt-get install subversion

To enable Eclipse to see your libsvn-java installation, go to the eclipse install directory (I install in /home/steve/dev/tools/eclipse) and edit the eclipse.ini file.

You need to add -Djava.library.path=/usr/lib/jni, which is where libsvn-java's native libraries get installed. Add it immediately following -vmargs. My eclipse.ini file now looks like this:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.2.0.v20110502.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86_64_1.1.100.v20110505
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256m
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-vmargs
-Djava.library.path=/usr/lib/jni
-Xms40m
-Xmx600m

If you use Subclipse but never previously installed Javahl you probably see irritating warning dialogs the first time you do anything in Eclipse after a restart. Installing javahl correctly will prevent those :).

Merry Christmas!