Eclipse Mars - Not ready for Linux Yet

So after hearing about all the hype and praises about this Eclipse new release called Mars, I decided to give it a try on my Ubuntu laptop yesterday. Since I already use Kepler the older version, I was looking for some big positives like performance improvements (most often talked about by a lot of Eclipse fans lately).

When I started this new eclipse on ubuntu, I first had a faint hope that it was running faster (maybe a trick of the mind instilled by the new red logo!). But the true test of any software is how it performs under REAL world conditions. Alas! As I had expected, I was only to be disappointed on the performance front. Unless there is a drastic change in underlying core components such as a code refactoring or an improvement of graphic toolkit/library, the “performance” can only get worse, not better. After I created a simple HelloADT project, here is what happened when I clicked on an Android Activity layout screen:

And this is a modern Intel core i3 machine we are talking about with 4 GB RAM, not some old device. Just after this disaster of an IDE happened, I started my good old kepler version and opened the same ADT project which ran without any problems:

It was good that I had kept my kepler installation folder intact, so I was able to revert. So moral of the story is:

1. Take all claims about this “big improvement” with a pinch of salt, especially if it is a Java based software.
2. Wait for Eclipse mars to get more stable before using it for production work.