What is Equinox p2

Equinox p2 is a comprehensive provisioning platform for delivering and managing RCP applications, tools, servers and embedded systems. Using integrated multi-threaded download, bundle pooling and state-of-the-art constraint resolution technology, p2 gives you one-stop-shopping for defining, installing and managing complex software systems.

The EclipseSource team includes founders and committers of the p2 effort.

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Why p2

Manage your complete install

Traditional installers don't know about Eclipse bundles and features, they simply copy files around and set parameters.  They also stop short of updating installed function. p2 has deep knowledge of how Eclipse works and gives you full control of all aspects of your Eclipse install from program and VM arguments to start-levels to bundle configuration.  There is no need to use disparate tools for install, update and management  of your system.

Simplified workflows

Installing and managing complex systems can be challenging.  p2's simplified workflows give end-users natural metaphors like drag-and-drop to manage their software. Application developers can compose and integrate new provisioning interfaces by reusing p2's GUI components.

Pool your resources

If your users have many Eclipse-based systems installed on one machine, p2's bundle pooling will save disk space, download time and bandwidth.  Bundles installed for one profile can be pooled and used to run other profiles.  Any given bundle need only be downloaded and installed once to be available to all p2 profiles.

Avoid runtime surprises

Unlike previous Eclipse management technology, p2 knows exactly what you are and will be running.  By separating the description of the your system from the system itself p2 allows you to reason about installation changes before committing them.  No more runtime surprises or wondering what you are actually running.

Install more than just bundles

Today's systems are composed of many different technologies.  Each runtime has its own requirements and configuration quirks. WARs, JARs, RPMs, MSI, executables etc. all work differently and integrate differently.  p2's extensible touchpoint mechanism adapts by using platform-specific code to interact with runtimes and install components.