So many options, which one do I choose?

[rharwood]

Hi,
I'm a JBoss newbie, and when I went to the download page I couldn't figure out which version of JBoss I should download and install: jboss-3.2.1.zip, jboss-3.2.1_tomcat-4.1.24.zip, jboss-3.2.2RC3_jetty-4.2.11.zip, jboss-3.2.2RC3.zip, jboss-4.0.0DR2.zip?
I'm familiar with Tomcat, but what's Jetty? Is Tomcat integrated or do I have to download separately?

Here's what I want: The most stable, but fairly recent version (is 3.2.2RC3 stable enough?). It should run without dependency on my previously installed Tomcat (I'm looking for a bundled servlet engine). Windows version. I'm planning on using it with MySql, which I'm also a newbie at.

Hint: By stable I mean, "It runs out of the box without any confusing exception stack-traces or error messages that may or may not be important. And I can dump an .ear file into the deploy folder without too many special configuration steps. Just the basic JBoss." I tried jboss-4.0.0DR2 and it had some weird non-fatal exceptions when I ran it.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[jonlee]

DR is a developer release. If some things are broken you get to keep the pieces. It just means that things are in a state of flux with a lot of new functionality for hard core developers to play with and get early exposure.

RC3 is a release candidate - just about ready for release but some additional field testing required.

Try 3.2.1. Jetty or Tomcat are your embedded servlet containers. Your choice as to which one to use. Just unpack it and make sure JAVA_HOME is set for your environment. Don't have any special classes in your classpath before you start JBoss.