Upgrading Eclipse on Ubuntu (from 3.5 to 3.7 indigo - works for other versions too)
After upgrading my Ubuntu version to 11.04 I installed eclipse using the software centre. It turns out that only v3.5 of Eclipse is available (as the latest) from the software Centre. I wanted to update to 3.7 but I wanted to keep all the links set up by the software centre e.g On the new Ubuntu "Start Page" or the new toolbar, in addition I want to be able to use the software centre to uninstall eclipse if the need arises.<!-- more -->
Method 1
The first thing I recommend you try is going to "Help => Install Software" Type in "http://download.eclipse.org/releases/indigo" then click "Add site" Click okay on the dialog that shows and it'll take some time to update the list Go through and try to upgrade...if it fails continually about dependencies then you should stop because this method probably won't work... try the next one below.
Method 2
Install Eclipse through package manager /software centre (whatever version is available)
Download the latest version of eclipse from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
Extract to a folder.
open terminal and do the following
remove the folder created by the software centre
rm -Rf /usr/lib/eclipse
move your newly downloaded and extracted eclipse folder to replace the one you just deleted
sudo mv ~/Downloads/eclipse /usr/lib/eclipse
optional and may cause issues - See this comment below for a possible fix
sudo mv /usr/lib/eclipse/eclipse.ini /usr/lib/eclipse/eclipse.ini.bak
sudo ln -s /etc/eclipse.ini /usr/lib/eclipse/eclipse.ini
Open /usr/bin/eclipse using sudo gedit /usr/bin/eclipse Replace old version name with the version you downloaded. E.g. If you downloaded Indigo and you have galileo installed then replace galileo with indigo using the text editor.
That's it...you could play around and only move some of the folders and keep the plugins folder to then do updates on your existing plugins.
The steps in method 2 leaves the original start up links from the Ubuntu menu, taskbar, toolbar and any other pre-existing links.
*UPDATE: As pointed out by Jacob in the comments: *(Untested since I didn't keep my old plugins) One needs to modify /usr/lib/eclipse/eclipse.ini to get eclipse to start (e.g. change the names of the plugins to match those available in the plugins folder)