Subject: Re: setting up cygwin
From: "Robert Collins" <[email-masked]>
To: "Randall R Schulz" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 07:19:31 +1100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Randall R Schulz" <[email-masked]>

> Robert,
>
> OK, but why then is there a "download" mode whose only purpose is to
create
> a local mirror of a Cygwin package repository?

Because :]. Seriously, the download mode is a sideeffect of the normal
instlal process, and thus trivial to implement because setup uses a
_cache_ of a cygwin package repository to prevent multiple downloads. It
doesn't delete old content (a function of a mirroring tool). It doesn't
grab everything (and for sources still won't with the new release). It
merges in content from multiple sites (also not a behaviour of a
mirroring tool in general).

> Frankly, I used to use a mirroring tool (FTP Voyager, though today I'd
use
> wget), but it was actually inferior for this purpose, and I'll tell
you
> why: You end up being at the mercy of the mirror from which you draw
your
> own local copies as to how much package history is deposited on your
local
> system mirror.
>
> Setup.exe is ideal in that it knows only of the current and previous
> versions and has a built-in "favoritism" to the latest version.

Which is why I suggested that maybe someone would want to create a
package mirroring tool using the setup.exe framework. I'd be happy for
such a thing to live in cinstall.
The point is that *setup.exe* is not, and should not become a cygwin
package mirroring tool. It doesn't mean that the wheel needs reinventing
to make something that does meet your needs.

> When I was mirroring with FTP Voyager I could not clean out old
package
> files without FTP Voyager retrieving them again. If I want to override
that
> action, then it's no better (in the "overly pointy clicky" vein) than
> Setup.exe.
>
> If wget has suitable options to prevent this "over-retrieval," either
I'm
> not seeing them in the man page or they're not documented.
>
> Randy

Rob

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