I'm trying to make a shared copy of Eclipse be used by several users but I can't get the Eclipse installation to use separate workspace definitions for different users: Instead this configuration is saved and loaded somewhere under the shared Eclipse installation directory, which is bad. Where do I change the setting about where the default value of the workspace directory is saved?
You can make Eclipse open a specific workspace at startup using the 'org.eclipse.ui.ide.prefs' file.
On Ubuntu using Eclipse 3.7 I found this under ~/.eclipse/org.eclipse.platform_3.7.0_155965261/configuration/.settings/, but you could search for it.
Eclipse always offers to open the most recent workspace first. You can set the most recent workspace using the RECENT_WORKSPACES property. You could also set 'SHOW_WORKSPACE_SELECTION_DIALOG=false' so Eclipse opens that workspace without asking.
Hope this helps.