Can not install eclim - linux

Question

Has anyone used eclim? I wanted to try it out and I use vim as my primary editor so I want to run it as a headless instance. Anyway I installed it via the Unattended (automated) install
$ java \
-Dvim.files=$HOME/.vim \
-Declipse.home=/opt/eclipse \
-jar eclim_2.4.0.jar install
I had already downloaded eclipse luna and I have jdk 7 installed (but I don't know if it is part of the environment variables) and I ended up with:
2014-08-30 10:37:40,569 INFO [ANT] [eclim:unattended] Finished analyzing your eclipse installation.
2014-08-30 10:37:40,572 ERROR [ANT]
jar:file:/home/jim/Downloads/eclim_2.4.0.jar!/installer.xml:119: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:116)
at org.apache.tools.ant.Task.perform(Task.java:348)
at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.execute(Target.java:390)
at org.apache.tools.ant.Target.performTasks(Target.java:411)
at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeSortedTargets(Project.java:1399)
at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTarget(Project.java:1368)
at org.apache.tools.ant.helper.DefaultExecutor.executeTargets(DefaultExecutor.java:41)
at org.apache.tools.ant.Project.executeTargets(Project.java:1251)
at org.formic.ant.Main.runBuild(Main.java:232)
at org.formic.ant.Main.startAnt(Main.java:81)
at org.formic.ant.Main.main(Main.java:63)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
at com.simontuffs.onejar.Boot.run(Boot.java:306)
at com.simontuffs.onejar.Boot.main(Boot.java:159)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.formic.Installer.getString(Installer.java:201)
at org.eclim.installer.step.FeatureProvider.getFeatures(FeatureProvider.java:99)
at org.eclim.installer.ant.UnattendedInstallTask.execute(UnattendedInstallTask.java:73)
at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
at org.apache.tools.ant.dispatch.DispatchUtils.execute(DispatchUtils.java:106)
... 16 more
2014-08-30 10:37:40,582 DEBUG [ANT]
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 19 seconds
java.lang.NullPointerException
So I have no idea what happened. But I can not find eclimd anywhere in my system

Answer 1

/opt is owned by root per default. My guess is that it indeed is in your setup and since eclim needs to write to /opt/eclipse during installation it results in an error. Try changing ownership of /opt/eclipse using the -R option or run the installation as root. Note though that using $HOME will then probably not lead to the desired result.

Answer 2

I had the same issue. I followed the instructions to build from the source code and that worked for me.
I checked out the master branch from the Git repository and used ant to build and install eclim. At the time of this writing that resulted in version 2.4.0.11-ge560abe getting installed without errors. Running eclimd and then :PingEclim and :EclimValidate from vim reported that everything is fine.
Note that eclimd dumped an exception on startup:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to aquire PluginConverter service during generation for: /home/pappmar/dev/eclipse/plugins/org.eclim.installer_2.4.0.11-ge560abe.jar
I don't know if that's a problem or not. It seems to be running all the same.