Firstly, install Eclipse from the repositories. Then open it up, select your default workspace (if you havent already) and then:

1. From the Help menu, select “Install new software”.
2. Click the “Add” button and add the following:
   • Name: Eclipse Updates (Galileo)
   • Location: http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo/
3. Apply your changes and wait for the contents to download.
4. When all is ready, select your new source from the drop down and look for the “Programming languages” section.
5. Open it up and add the “PHP Development Tools (PDT) SDK Feature”.
6. Step through using Next and Finish etc, and after a few moments downloading and installing you now have a PHP ready IDE.

Aptana Studio IDE

UPDATE: With the latest version of Aptana 2 and Ubuntu 9.10 it seems you dont need to do this hack anymore. Try it without first of all, then if you get problems – apply the fixes as described.

I have been using the Aptana IDE for PHP and Ajax development for a while now on my Windows system, and have decided that it is much better than the standard Eclipse, at least for me. I wanted to start using it on my Linux machine but encountered problems which prevented it from running.

It took me a while to find out how to get it to work, but thanks to Google and some others who have had this problem before me, I now have a working Aptana Studio on my Ubuntu system.

Here is how to get it working:

1. Download and extract Aptana Studio for Linux (All in one) from here.
2. Use Synaptic to install xulrunner (version 1.8).
3. Use Synaptic to install a JRE.
4. Create a text file (in your home folder etc) which we will use to set up the Aptana environment and execute the application. Call it startAptana.
5. Paste the text from below in to the new text file, and be sure to change the bottom line so that it matches the path to your Aptana installation.
6. Make the startAptana file executable.
7. Double click the startAptana file to start using Aptana, or create menu icon that links to it.

#!/bin/sh
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/xulrunner
if [ $LD_LIBRARY_PATH ]; then
   LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
else
   LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME
fi
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH
/home/sam/Apps/aptana/AptanaStudio