Question

I use eclipse IDE for developing my GWT and android apps. I would like to transition to a chromebook for my main development computer, but I can’t figure out how I would get eclipse “installed”. There is no chrome app version of eclipse, at least not that I can find. I do see that there are other IDEs in the chrome store, but I don’t think they would have all the nifty helper plugins that eclipse has for google developers. Anybody know if a chrome version of eclipse is coming? Do others share my desire to develop on a chrome book?

Answer 1

Eclipse is not coming for Chrome OS. You need a JVM to run it and one of the compatible desktops for the UI widgets. So you would have to escape from Chrome OS desktop into base Linux and somehow launch a regular Linux desktop (like GTK) to have any hope of running Eclipse. Also, a typical chromebook is far too underpowered to run a full IDE.

Here are some options to consider:

1. Project Orion – A web based IDE from many of the same people who develop Eclipse. One of the goals is to enable Eclipse-like capabilities for platforms like iOS, Android, Chrome OS, etc. It has quite a few base IDE capabilities already, but not a lot of plugins just yet. Probably not going to see something as sophisticated as ADT for a while if ever. Google would have to implement Android emulators in JavaScript. Not an easy task.
2. Run Eclipse on another machine and use a remote desktop from your chromebook.
3. Run Eclipse Che on another machine or cloud server and use Chrome