Installing Eclipse-PDT with PHP support in Ubuntu 12.10

Eclipse is a full fledged IDE which is being used for the development and debugging of many programming languages like Java, PHP, ROR etc.

In this article we are going to discuss the installation of Eclipse in Ubuntu with support for the PHP. The version of Eclipse which comes default in the Ubuntu repositories is Eclipse 3.8

Eclipse Splash Screen

First of all we will install Eclipse, and then we will proceed with the PDT (PHP Development Tools) installation. All this is pretty easy.

Open the Ubuntu Software Center from the Unity Dash.

Unity Dash

Type in Eclipse in the search box (1) there and click the More Info (2) button, as shown in the screenshot below.

Click the Install button and the Part 1 of the Eclipse installation will be complete.

An alternative way to installing Eclipse is using the Command-line install. It is quite easy too - Just paste the following command into the terminal and Eclipse will be installed.

sudo apt-get install eclipse

Command line currently shows Eclipse as installed already

Now we proceed to the PHP Development Tools installation in Eclipse. For this we need to open up our Eclipse and click the Help menu at the top and click on the Install New Software link. The Install New Software dialog box opens up and next we select the Indigo repository in the dropdown (1). Select the Programming Languages>PHP Development Tools (PDT) SDK Feature (2) and click Next.

Install New Software dialog box in Eclipse

Accept the End Users License Agreement (EULA) and click Next. Restart Eclipse and your Eclipse-PDT or Eclipse with PHP Development Tools is ready to use.

To verify, click the File menu and click New Project and select Other. Keyboard shortcut for this is Ctrl+N. You will see the PHP project options there.

File>New>Other Menu in Eclipse-PDT

Your Eclipse PDT is ready to use. Happy PHP-ing with Eclipse :)