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X-Authentication-Warning:	slinky.cs.nyu.edu: pechtcha owned process doing -bs
Date:	Sun, 25 Aug 2002 22:13:34 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu>
Reply-To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
To:	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
cc:	fergus AT bonhard DOT uklinux DOT net
Subject:	Re: Setup and dependencies
In-Reply-To:	<000701c249dc$2cea98c0$6fc82486@medschool.dundee.ac.uk>
Message-ID:	<Pine.GSO.4.44.0208252210240.2079-100000@slinky.cs.nyu.edu>
MIME-Version:	1.0

On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 fergus AT bonhard DOT uklinux DOT net wrote:

> In between the two extremes of "basic" and "complete" installations of
> Cygwin, setup allows the user to make their own selection from what is on
> offer. As a simple example of what can happen, it is possible to select man,
> and de-select groff. After installation is completed, any attempt to use man
> will fail, because (as is made explicit in setup.ini) man requires groff.
>
> I can see that with 228 packages to choose from (today) the dependence graph
> becomes moderately complex: but are setup.exe and setup.ini presently
> intended to supervise this aspect of a user's installation and prevent such
> "illegal" selections? (In which case I think this is a failure.)
>
> (I can also see that setup.ini offers all necessary relevant information to
> the user, who might reasonably be expected to put some intelligent effort
> into achieving a sufficient choice for glitch-free behaviours. But it's
> precisely because this becomes so difficult so quickly, that automated
> invisible supervision from setup would be so much appreciated.)
>
> Thank you.
> Fergus

One minor comment is that "automated invisible supervision" would surely
be wrong, as people may, for example, want to install some package by
means other than cygwin setup (e.g., by compiling from the source cvs).
However, a dependence check and a warning to make sure the user knows what
he's doing before installing the packages would be a nice addition.
	Igor
-- 
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     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

It took the computational power of three Commodore 64s to fly to the moon.
It takes a 486 to run Windows 95.  Something is wrong here. -- SC sig file


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