MPLAB® X IDE 3.00 will not start on Linux®.

There is a bug in the version of NetBeans that MPLAB® X IDE is based upon that causes problems when running with GTK 3.3.4.

As a workaround for NetBeans BUG 2749, skip initializing GTK+ LAF (Look and Feel). Otherwise, in Java 7 on a platform with GTK+ 3.3.4 or later (e.g. Gnome desktop environment on Linux), running a SWT/GTK+ based-application causes the application to exit with: GThread-ERROR **: GThread system may only be initialized once. aborting. This isn't a problem on GTK+ 2.x based desktop environments such as XFCE.

There are two ways to change the LAF used by MPLAB X IDE:

1. Run MPLAB X IDE with a command line option:

/opt/microchip/mplabx/v3.00/mplab_ide/bin/mplab_ide --laf Nimbus

2. Change the mplabx.conf file:

  • The file may be found at: /opt/microchip/mplabx/v3.00/mplab_ide/etc/mplab_ide.conf.
  • Open the file as root in your favorite editor and find the line starting with default_options=.
  • Add the following to the space separated list of parameters within the quote marks:
--laf javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel

You should have something like the following when you are done:
default_options="-J-Djava.io.tmpdir=/tmp/mplab_ide -J-Dcrownking.stream.verbosity=very-quiet -J-Xss2m -J-Xms256m -J-XX:PermSize=128m -J-XX:MaxPermSize=384m -J-Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true -J-XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -J-Dapt.limit.expanded.params=1000 -J-Dplugin.manager.check.interval=EVERY_DAY --laf javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel"
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