Issue1359

I was trying to install jython 2.5 rc3 and after doing jar xvf, I
realized that it does not have a root directory. This is painful and a
fix will be simple enough to create the installer with a root directory
name so that when someone installs it it does not pollute the install
directory and installs everything in to something like jython-2.5rc3. 

I also wonder on the choice of packaging as a jar. Would zip packaging
not be simpler?

As documented in http://www.jython.org/Project/installation.html, the 
idea is to RUN the installation .jar, not to unpack it.

The .jar contains a MANIFEST which specifies what to do when started.

So please do:
  java -jar jython_installer-2.5rc3.jar
or:
  java -jar jython_installer-2.5rc3.jar --help

I am using jython to run django app. So I 
need the full jython install on which I 
can install django. Can you tell me how 
java -jar is going to  work for me?

How do I reopen this bug? I don't agree 
with your resolution.

On the command line, cd into the directory where jython_installer-
2.5rc3.jar is, and then type:
  java -jar jython_installer-2.5rc3.jar
This will open a GUI installation program, which is pretty 
straightforward to use.
E.g. it will ask you where to install Jython to.

Hope this helps (and no need to reopen),
Oti.

Ah! It is UI based installer. 

Although, I wonder on a headless system this could still be an issue but
for my purpose it just works fine:)

On headless systems, it automatically switches into console mode.
You can force this using the --console flag.
And if you are too lazy to go through all the steps, use --silent.
If you type:
  java -jar jython_installer-2.5rc3.jar --help
it prints more details about the above possibilities.

Have fun!