Eclipse 3.4 r 341 deb package for 64-bit Ubuntu or how to make a .deb file for Ubuntu

I bring you "eclipse-osil" package of Eclipse 3.4.341 for Ubuntu. I'm using Intrepid but there is very little reason to think it won't work just as well on other versions (as long as it is the 64-bit Intel/AMD and not the Itanium stuff).

Key features

• Memory is pegged at 512m to 1024m in eclipse.ini
• depends on sun JDK 6 SOLELY (not GCJ or the 100 repackaged jars)
• installs in /opt/eclipse-3.4.341 with a soft link /opt/eclipse
• installs a shortcut under Applications/Other with the planet logo

I'd love feedback.

On Packaging stuff in Ubuntu

This is my first real .deb file. Forever I was at a loss on how to create these. I've sat through like 2 live sessions, watched the google video session. I still didn't "get it". Okay so here is the deal. It is RIDICULOUSLY AND MORONICALLY SIMPLE IF YOU JUST FOLLOW THIS TUTORIAL: "How to make deb packages".

The only gotchas:

• The tutorial talks about the control file being in the DEBIAN directory but doesn't spell it out for you...It is a text file called "control" with no extension, minus the quotes.
• Tutorials explaining the menu structure are few and far between. I looked at the wireshark package and another eclipse package, extracted their content and looked at what they put in /usr/share. The most important file is the .desktop file. I still can't figure out how to put it in the "Programming" category. It presently goes in "Applications/Other" for some reason.
• Intellectual property theft is the greatest gift and source of all innovation in mankind. To extract an existing package type dpkg -x packagname. To get at the control file type dpkg-deb --control packagename.

• acoliver's blog