More experimentation with IzPack: Naman reports its use in an Installer for SailFin. The overall experience is like that of the GlassFish Installer, which we are considering placing as an additional Java.Net installer.

Julien Ponge has just announced the availability of an improved version of the GlassFish installer powered by the shinny new 3.1.1 release of IzPack.

Since the previous release, the installer has gained support for Solaris (x86 and SPARC) and more flexibility in domain creation (domain name, port, password, etc..). It also optionally starts the domain on your behalf and points you to the admin console. You can chose between a MacOS, Windows or "universal" installer.

It seems that Julien has been getting a fair amount of download without even being listed on the GlassFish homepage as a download option. Maybe we should change the later.

A slow week; I was still catching up from the Trip to Orlando. • GF Community - New IzPack Installer and GreenFire • HowTo - Combining JMX and Management in GlassFish • New Portal Bundles - Liferay 4.4.0 and GlassFish • Community Programs - Grants Program and Registration Page • Web.Next - GlassFish and Ruby Meetup

Good news from Julien: he has a new version of IzPack for GlassFish that has support for Solaris, can adjust domain and cluster creation and can open the admin console for you. Check it out and give feedback; it looks very good. Check Julien's Announcement or go directly to the Installer JAR file.

The big news was the Release of GFv2UR1 (Rate it!) but there were many other news:

• Web Services - Dynamic WADL, Metro Releases, JAX-WS Handlers • Web.Next - jMaki 1.0.3, and GWT • Community - IzPack ([1], [2]), Debian, Fix-and-Continue, Localization • Many Releases - Grizzly 1.7, JAXB 2.1.6, Social Network • Adoption - Banking on GlassFish • Telco - SailFin Toolin

Julien Ponge had promised to release his IzPack-powered GlassFish installer soon after v2ur1 was released. It is now available. Instructions and download location HERE. This is a single-archive download for three platforms: Linux, Mac, and Windows. The installer for Solaris should come later. Let us and Julien know what you think - both how it compares to the existing install experience as well as what could be improved in Julien's installer.

There's been some recent activity around the GlassFish install experience lately and that's a good thing (tm). Julien Ponge, GlassFish Community member and creator of IzPack has announced an IzPack-based GlassFish installer. This is a single jar installer (around 80M) containing everything for Windows, Mac and Linux. Solaris should follow. The jar is created using the "official" GlassFish installer binaries and a Ruby script to compute the platform-specific files and generate the IzPack XML descriptor.

The bits will soon be available as well as "source code of the scripts and IzPack-specific files needed to generate the installer under a liberal MIT-style license". Thanks Julien!