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Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 11:09:44 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Where is the manual to manually install cygwin in Windows 200 0
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On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 02:21:20PM +0100, Lawrence W. Smith wrote:
>setup.exe has become a real mess TBH between the URL directory names,
>accumulating multiple copies of data in multiple places instead of
>the simple tree used before and the fallacy inherent in a GUI install.

What's become a real mess is the fact that people seem to be doing an
"ls" in their download directories and then apparently gasp with slack
jawed horror when they see the awful mirror-based directory in their
download area.

However, that aside, setup's functionality has not degraded.  In fact it
improves with each release, just like good software should.

>What makes for an "easy" install on one workstation ought to imply 
>ease of use on multiple workstations... it doesn't, quite the contrary,

Why doesn't it?  Run setup on each workstation.  If that's too hard,
then copy the download directory around to multiple workstations.  Think
of the directory as a black box.  Don't perform "ls" in the directory if
your sensibilities are offended by the mirror subdirectory.

Or, copy the whole cygwin "root" directory around and set up the mount
points using mount.  It's not that hard if you reorient your thinking
to solving problems rather than complaining about problems and waiting
for someone to solve your problems for you.

>a simple config file based approach with a script that did the
>installing would be far, far easier. (such as make)

This is really hilarious.  When we had a version of setup that just
did a non-gui install everyone whined about how hard it was and kept
asking where the gui version was.  Now true nirvana would be achieved
if only we had a script based install.

>As it is, it smacks of the "developer knows best" and "one size fits all"
>approaches so popular at M$ which is sad given cygwin's heritage!

Cygwin's heritage is free software.  Unfortunately, that means that there
are a lot of groaners who think things should be done "their way" and
few people doing the actual work.  So developers work on what we want to
work on, but still try to produce software that we think will help.
Oddly enough, it's the developers who advance the state of the software,
not the hyperbolic messages from people who have figured out how to use
their mail software to send opinionated email to cygwin at cygwin dot com.

So, bottom line is that we have little interest in dealing with people
who think that they have special needs but have no special skills to
implement their needs -- especially when they can't even really
articulate why the available software doesn't fit their needs.

That doesn't mean that there aren't all sorts of methods for installing
cygwin that will work just as well as setup.exe.  It's just up to
whomever to exert a little brain power to figure out how to do it.  I even
posted a short snippet of code that showed how to do this in a script not
too long ago.

Regardless, It is always humorous to see people becoming indignant about
software that they're being given for free.

>Short-sighted, misguided install philosophy aside, thanks for a wonderful
>selection of software :)

Ignorant, inflammatory email aside, you're welcome.

cgf

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