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: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 19:40:27 +0100 From: Elfyn McBratney To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: Re: installation problem SOLVED Message-ID: <20030829184027.GC614@emcb.co.uk> Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com References: <5 DOT 1 DOT 0 DOT 14 DOT 1 DOT 20030824143837 DOT 030aa830 AT localhost> <5 DOT 2 DOT 0 DOT 9 DOT 1 DOT 20030829184437 DOT 02dbfd18 AT localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.1.20030829184437.02dbfd18@localhost> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Frank Stajano wrote: > This is a follow-up to my own installation problem as reported in > http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-08/msg01255.html > to which no reply appeared here yet. > > After a lot of attempts and a lot of persistence I discovered that the > reason for all the strange behaviour was that some of the tarballs in the > installation directory were missing. > > So I went online again (at the office---I was doing an offline installation > at home, where I only had a modem, so I didn't want to download 100s of MB > that way) and fetched the stuff from zero into a new directory. > > ***And it was still incomplete!*** The problem is with the mirror, > ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk , because when I downloaded "everything" from it I > got 125 MB, 117 files, 131 folders whereas when I downloaded everything > from http://mirrors.sunsite.dk I got 198 MB, 149 files, 155 folders. Now, I > can't say for sure that this second download isn't also missing something, > but the first one certainly was. I used to use mirror.ac.uk, but they we're too unreliable. On more than one occasion, I downloaded corrupt files (like perl or XFree packages) and they didn't get it fixed for ages. mirrors.rcn.net on the other hand is the one I use now and have had no problems at all. > My humble suggestion would be to add some kind of self check on what's > there (e.g. a packing list, maybe just the setup.ini, with its MD5 hash) so > that the setup program could ask the mirror "what are you giving me?" "the > list of packages as of 2003-08-28" and the setup program could easily check > if any are missing, in which case it might recommend another mirror. Unfortunately, this is the way mirrors work. Some are good. Some are bad. I was thinking about something like this a while ago, and even started writing the code for it, where the data from `last' would be used to see when a mirror last updated, and record the findings in a list or page accessible from the Cygwin home page. You could then add a hook in setup.exe to check whether the mirror is in sync, if not warn the user. Having a complete list of files in release/, and having setup.exe churn through it, and attempt to download the file is (or could be) a lot of work. Either way, if your interested in working on something like this, you might want to subscribe to cygwin-apps and start a discussion there (see for the address). > I wasted a lot of time on this because I axiomatically assumed that the > stuff I downloaded was complete and self-consistent, so I believe that a > self-check at this level would be very useful. > > It appears that in my case setup didn't bat an eyelash about the fact that > setup.ini listed some files that the mirror was not actually supplying for > download. I would have expected and welcomed a warning. Same applies to an > install from the local directory, of course. ... Sorry about the signature, it's a must. :-) -- Elfyn McBratney +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Software Patents in Europe | +------------------------------------------------------------+ | On September 1st 2003 the European Parliment will make a | | decision about establishing a new law which would allow | | software patents in Europe. This means that Europe's | | programmers and citizens alike could face considerable | | risk. | +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Unlike copyright, patents can block independent creations! | | Software patents can render software copyright useless. | | One copyrighted work can be covered by hundreds of patents | | of which the author doesn't even know but for whose | | infringement he and his users can be sued. 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