If you are looking into leveraging the Sun IPS technology + Update center tool, I suggest that you check out the nice (Confluence-based) wiki at http://wikis.sun.com/display/IpsBestPractices/Image+Packaging+System+Best+Practices.
One thing I am looking at for IzPack is to provide a deep (yet optional) IPS integration through dedicated panels and the possibility to have some online packages that would be delivered by IPS…
As mentioned in this recent blog post, IzPack offers another solution to install Glassfish. Especially, the IzPack-based installers works on any Java-enabled operating system, and it provides a smooth initial configuration experience.
The post also mentions alternative packagings for Linux distributions, which is always nice to have (different installation contexts require different solutions).
In the v3 IzPack installer that is mentioned, I’d like to add that we offer a complement to the IPS-based update center in Glassfish: IzPack provides the initial installation / final uninstallation while the update center provides the updates and add-ons, just as Christopher Kampmeier from Sun Microsystems nicely blogged about a few weeks back.
I have just uploaded my latest mix, hoping that you will enjoy it.
You can get it from the HCLcast.
If you haven’t yet subscribed to the podcast, go ahead and fix that!
Good news: IzPack 4.1.0 has just been released!
Here is a reproduction of the official announcement.
I am pleased to announce that the IzPack team released today the version 4.1.0 of the software.
IzPack is a one-stop solution for packaging, distributing and deploying applications. It is fully cross-platform and generates a single installer. As such, it is an alternative to native solutions such as platform-specific installers and package managers. IzPack-generated installers only require a Java virtual machine to run.
This new version brings new features such as Pack200 compression support or better user-defined conditions. Improvements include a reduction of the installers size, the ability to set environment variables in ProcessPanel or variables substitution in HtmlInfoPanel. Finally, this release brings its usual set of bug fixes and minor improvements.
It is recommended that current users upgrade to this new release.
IzPack can be downloaded from http://izpack.org/downloads/ and is released under the permissive Apache License v2.0.
Many thanks go to the developers and contributors for their hard work!
Please find the release notes below. Feel free to repost this announcement to your favorite blogs and websites!
Release notes:
Bug
* [IZPACK-72] - PortProcessor does not catch invalid error
* [IZPACK-93] - Re-enabled button does not gain focus
* [IZPACK-126] - Lost input data when navigating forward/backward in installer
* [IZPACK-127] - Conditionid used instead of condition for job definitions
* [IZPACK-141] - Information defined in info section are not available as build-in variable during compile time
* [IZPACK-142] - Custom panel jars are not found with maven plugin
* [IZPACK-151] - file unpack does not work with war files
* [IZPACK-152] - UserPathPanel prints debug messages to console
* [IZPACK-159] - IzPack2App: executable bit should be forced to be set on the Java application stub
* [IZPACK-160] - Documention for file’s override attribute missing “false” value
* [IZPACK-167] - izpack2exe crashes when called from a different directory than where it resides
* [IZPACK-168] - izpack2app does not properly work when called from the same folder as the scriptImprovement
* [IZPACK-63] - Reduce the installers size
* [IZPACK-112] - Registry interaction: allow string key values to be extended
* [IZPACK-114] - Ability to set environment variables when using ProcessPanel
* [IZPACK-123] - Multiple HTMLInfo Panels showing different html files…
* [IZPACK-124] - Parsing/Variable substitution of the content in HTMLInfoPanel
* [IZPACK-130] - TestLangPacks: build.xml update: Added distribution dir and files and some other tasks. Added zip creation.
* [IZPACK-149] - support encoding when interpolating izpack descriptor
* [IZPACK-155] - InstallPanel overall progress bar should be indeterminate if there is only one pack to install
* [IZPACK-157] - Raise the JVM heap size in IzPack scriptsNew Feature
* [IZPACK-82] - Pack200 support
* [IZPACK-84] - Install Script Locator Framework
* [IZPACK-110] - User Condition
* [IZPACK-145] - Ablility to disable the attaching of the artifact in maven plugin
* [IZPACK-147] - ability to customize the final nameTask
* [IZPACK-129] - TestLangPacks: Added directory for distribution files.
* [IZPACK-131] - TestLangPacks: Added version stamping into use for various files.
* [IZPACK-132] - TestLangPacks: application name and version are taken from Manifest.mf file. Documentation update.
* [IZPACK-134] - TestLangPacks: Tag for version 1.0-beta1
* [IZPACK-137] - TestLangPacks: Added license file.
* [IZPACK-139] - Italian langpack update.
* [IZPACK-143] - TestLangPacks: Documentation update.
* [IZPACK-144] - TestLangPacks: Tag for version 1.0.
My websites at izpack.org, izforge.com and this blog have been hacked tonight around 3am 
My hosting provider has recovered a backup from early september. I will progressively refresh the content that had been edited since then.
Thanks for your comprehension…
Edit: I should have restored nearly everything now… please let me know if you notice anything missing. Thanks!
P.S.: I hate PHP. Seriously.
