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 Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 09:56:50 -0600 From: Joshua Daniel Franklin To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: Re: Added setup.exe to User's Guide Message-ID: <20030325095650.A17542@ns1.iocc.com> References: <20030323230647 DOT GA2092 AT world-gov> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: ; from garbage_collector@telia.com on Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 03:49:02PM +0100 > > I believe most of your suggestions assume that the user has little or > > no knowledge of Unix. I'm operating under the assumption that most new > > users have knowledge of Unix and will already have run into things like > > \r\n line endings, man, info, etc. > > IMHO my suggestions adds just that *tiny bit* of extra info that makes a > new user get the grip - without some of the FAQs. This is true, and makes me feel somewhat guilty since one of the goals I have for the Cygwin documentation is for it to be more accessible to new users. However, I think it needs to be organized properly. I hate reading Linux admin books that start out with how to use 'cp' and 'mkdir'. If I wanted that, I'd have gotten 'Linux for Dummies' or 'Learning the Unix OS'. Consequentially, I don't want to pepper a page that is about using setup.exe with thoughts on man and info, line endings, BSD vs. SysV, or my opinion of the military action in Iraq. Instead, I need to make a 'If you are new to Unix' page with a link from the setup-net page. > I've gotten the impression that this isn't easily accomplished. > > > Install Cygwin on one machine. Copy the cache to a separate machine. > > Install again. This will work fine, as long as you choose the same mirror. > > First of all; those two lines belong on the web-page. > Second; setup.exe does not cover all situations. > Third; It involves loads of manual work, on more than a few machines. > Fourth; using a LAN -> high load when all machines has to be updated. > > This has been discussed throughly here on the ML. With a slant towards the > second; IMHO this needs to be mentioned, toghether with some kind of > pointers to the postings - unless it can be summarised directly. > > I'm asking myself: Why do people insist on not telling about the possible > ways to achieve this? > IMHO this is like somebody telling you that there is no such thing as "free > speech" unless you pay the license fee (Here: the bill for having high speed > Internet). Simply put: _irritating_ >;-} . While there is some of the gnostic knowledge attitidue to why all this sort of information is not on the web pages, at least in my case it is mostly an aversion to putting incorrect information up. I am actually working on a page (it's not on the Cygwin site at all yet) that describes how to create an internal Cygwin mirror. That is something not covered by setup.exe that would be useful for people. But I don't want to put up a page that gives a perfunctory description that someone will try, see that it doesn't work, and then give up or complain ("Cygwin is really crappy"). I want it to be *right*. > The basis of it - is here: > - It isn't that fun to download all of cygwin over 128k/ISDN (or slower), > you really need something faster than that. > - Not everybody has ADSL++/flat rate/eons of time for plain downloads. > - Please, also note: We have to pay in proportion to time, for beeing > online, > over here. This escalates into unbearable bills very soon. > > Example of the last: > With minimal Internet online-time I have to pay > more than $100/month currently. > I have no intention to increase the amount on those bills e.g. by > downloading the entire cygwin. So why don't you move? While I can't totally empathize since I've never had high Internet bills, until recently I was on US dialup (that's 53Kb down at best). That's one reason I got involved with the cygwin-apps discussions, since it was so difficult to get the minimal installation I wanted. A lot of progress has been made, but there is still a lot to do. Thankfully, I now have a broadband connection. > > To what sort of information are you referring? > > All the postings on the cygwin ML about installing without setup.exe, > creating CDR-copies of the cache _to be used as install-source_ and so on. > > Am I that unclear in style of writing? > I find it alarming. It's not you, it's me. :) For some reason (I believe it was when I lived in Japan, since you are often rewarded for being vague there), I have developed a habit of throwing hints at people when I know what I want. I need to stop. What I meant, is: Can you give some links to posts that were helpful to you? To a lot of us on the list, how setup.exe works is much more intuitive now than it was a long time ago. Some posts are what we would consider obvious information, but a revelation to a newer user. On Mon, Mar 24, 2003, Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail) wrote: > Well, now to the collection of words; something like this, maybe: Thanks for providing this. A couple suggestions from experience: --Provide examples ("For example, create a 'C:\cache' directory. Move setup.exe to that directory and run it. Make sure that 'C:\cache' is selected as your Local Package Directory.") --Generalize the names. You might call the two machines 'host' and 'target' or something similar. After all, your fast connection might be at home, and the target at work! I will probably add something similar when I get the chance. If you'd like to look at the actual source used to create the Cygwin webpages, it's here: A real 'diff -up' might be applied directly. :) Because of your Internet connection misfortunes, however, I suspect that the very large downloads of all the build tools are somewhat beyond your means. If you're wanting to help with the documentation, send me your address offlist and I'll mail you a CDR (with sources to comply with the GPL). As a final note, I want to encourage everyone to keep sending thoughts to the list. The discussion is very helpful, and though I have a limited amount of time I plan to work on improving the Cygwin documentation long-term. -- 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/