Eclipse.ini settings

Eclipse startup is controlled by the options in $ECLIPSE_HOME/eclipse.ini. If $ECLIPSE_HOME is not defined, the default eclipse.ini in your Eclipse installation directory is used. eclipse.ini is a text file containing command-line options that are added to the command line used when Eclipse is started up.

Warning:

• Each option and each argument to an option must be on its own line. 
• All lines after -vmargs are passed as arguments to the JVM, so all arguments and options for eclipse must be specified before -vmargs (just like when you use arguments on the command-line)

Windows eclipse.ini example : 

01.-showsplash

02.org.eclipse.platform

03.--launcher.XXMaxPermSize

04.256m

05.-vm

06.C:\Java\JDK\1.5\bin\javaw.exe

07.-vmargs

08.-Xms40m

09.-Xmx512m

The eclipse.ini file is divided into two parts: 

• The Eclipse part 
• The JVM part 

Theses two parts are separated by the -vmargs argument, which indicates that all what follows concern the JVM.

Some configurations 

Defines the workspace path

PLATFORM	CONFIGURATION
Windows Platform	-Dosgi.instance.area=C:\var\workspace
Linux Platform or Mac Platform	-Dosgi.instance.area=/home/my_user/workspace

Basic memory management configuration

PLATFORM	CONFIGURATION
-Xms512m	minimum memory size for pile and heap
-Xmx1024m	maximum memory size for pile and heap
-XX:MaxPermSize=512m	maximum memory size for storing permanent JVM objects

Encoding and default language

Platform	Configuration
-Dfile.encoding=utf8	To Set UTF-8 as the Default Encoding for New Text Files
-Duser.language=en	To set eclipse console locale/language

http://www.java-tutorial.ch/eclipse/eclipseini