OSGi : Install Eclipse Plugins Fedora

Installing Eclipse onto Fedora 14 - X86_64

1. Start with a clean install of Fedora 14, preferably from a live CD. For my examples I used the 64 bit edition.
2. When the install is complete, open a terminal window and run yum update to bring your system up to date. You may have to reboot once this is done.
3. Install Eclipse (Helios 3.6.1) with the command yum groupinstall "Fedora Eclipse".
4. That's it! You can now use Eclipse to build C, C++ or Java programs.

Checking which Plug-ins are Already Installed

Fedora Eclipse comes with many plug-ins preinstalled. To list the installed plug-ins, select Install New Software from the Help menu.

Then, near the bottom of the window, click on What is Already Installed.

Select the Plug-ins tab and scroll down to verify that Eclipse Equinox is installed.

So What is Eclipse Equinox?

Equinox is an implementation of the OSGi R4 core framework specification, a set of bundles that implement various optional OSGi services and other infrastructure for running OSGi-based systems.

Ok, so Equinox is like an engine built into Eclipse that allows programmers to execute their OSGi-based systems without the use of an OSGi-enabled application server.

So What is OSGi?

OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) defines a modular (component) framework for Java.

Ok, so it's just a definition of how to do things better when running any Java application, starting from desktop, mobile, up to enterprise applications. Better than what? Better that what we were able to build so far. For instance, Eclipse itself is a good example; prior to OSGi technology, Eclipse was built on the plug-in concept; starting with Eclipse 3.0, the OSGi framework specification forms the basis of the Eclipse.