Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com X-Authentication-Warning: slinky.cs.nyu.edu: pechtcha owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 22:06:41 -0500 (EST) From: Igor Pechtchanski Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com To: "linda w (cyg)" cc: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: Re: Can someone explain the 'obvious' to me...or is it a Grimm's Bro. tale...? In-Reply-To: <002801c2e6a9$52ed9a80$1403a8c0@sc.tlinx.org> Message-ID: Importance: Normal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, linda w (cyg) wrote: > I really _think_ (maybe I don't know what I want), but I think I > want to setup my cygroot -> c:\. > > Now I know this isn't recommended, but why/whynot? The > only reason I heard, which sounded a bit weak, was, "Well what if > some new program comes in and creates a /usr, /var, /tmp...etc > TLD? Then it might stomp on Cygwin files. Is that the only reason > because some program may someday write into those directories and > may write files with the same names into those directories? > > The thing is...I think it'd be a bit cool to see some better > merging of the Win/cyg env. Like setting %Program Files% => > /usr/local/bin? or /opt?, Setting Documents&Settings ->home, > etc. > > At the very least, I'd have less to worry about with which set of > programs I'm using -- with the path's relative to root being the > same (now whether or not individual tools handle both / and \ is > another matter, but at least \ would equal /, for the most part. > > Of course, I would expect that "Find C:\" would return nothing > if I did that, but find / would return my entire fs and not just > the cygwin subtree.... > > Comments on my lunacy/flights of fancy? :-) > Linda Hmm, note that there is a difference between "not recommended" and outright "prohibited". Nothing really prevents you from making 'C:\' your '/'. Oh, you may get a warning from setup, but it's more of a "you better know what you're doing" type of thing... Some of the prominent members of this list use 'C:\' as '/', so it certainly is *possible* to do (and there seems to exist a larger group of people using 'N:\' as '/', where N: is some drive other than C:). It is not advisable to a general newbie, mostly because if (and when) problems do arise (and they are *likely* to, with all the different software out there), people who don't know what they're doing are going to bug the list, which is high-volume as it is. The intent, as I understand it, is to avoid the "I made C:\ my root, and now it doesn't work, and I don't know enough Cygwin/Unix/whatever else to fix it, please help" type of messages. This is not to say that people who *do* know what they're doing never run into those kinds of problems, but they are at least expected to take a shot at diagnosing/fixing them themselves, and they accept the risk. There is also an added possibility that every time you report a problem on the list, you'll be expected to make sure that 'C:\'=>'/' didn't cause it, or to be able to reproduce it in a "recommended" environment (or you'll simply be told not to make 'C:\' your '/'). So, to rehash this for the archives: Do *not* make 'C:\' your '/' *unless* you know what you are doing and are prepared to handle the problems that *might* arise. Igor -- http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/ |\ _,,,---,,_ pechtcha AT cs DOT nyu DOT edu ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ igor AT watson DOT ibm DOT com |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Igor Pechtchanski '---''(_/--' `-'\_) fL a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-. Meow! Oh, boy, virtual memory! Now I'm gonna make myself a really *big* RAMdisk! -- /usr/games/fortune -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/