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Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:41:47 -0500
To: "Darkfalz" <darkfalz AT dodo DOT com DOT au>, <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
From: Larry Hall <lh-no-personal-replies-please AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: Getting latest version of cygwin1.dll
In-Reply-To: <000501c4cb36$e22ba480$0100a8c0@WINDOWSXP>
References: <000501c4cb36$e22ba480$0100a8c0 AT WINDOWSXP>
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At 12:16 PM 11/15/2004, you wrote:
>When I go to the main website, ALL I want to do is get the latest cygwin1.dll file. You SHOULD have a link to a zip containing it on the main page.
>
>But no, instead you offer your stupid installer, or you offer a page to browse packages, but what do the packages contain? TEXT LISTING OF FILES WHICH AREN'T EVEN THERE!
>
>Why do you have to make it so freaking hard for people who only need the dll to run cygwin programs? 


History has shown that many people visiting this site and installing Cygwin
expect to have an installer program.  Overall, the volume of questions to 
this list has been minimized by the fact that there is an installer.  Also,
Cygwin cannot be successfully and completely installed simply by unzipping
some archive.  There are symbolic links to manage, pre and post install 
scripts to run, dependencies to manage, etc.  While it is possible to do
this all by hand, most people who frequent this site don't want to do 
this even if they are capable of executing the steps manually themselves.
In addition, the number of people reporting problems when trying to install
this way prompted the creation of the installer to automate this process.
It was simply something that had to be done to keep the project going.  The
support of a manual install procedure was simply too great.

Sorry if this all distresses you.  There is currently no package with *just*
cygwin1.dll in it and there are no plans to offer one.  There is the 
'cygwin' package which contains the cygwin1.dll and some other minimal tools.
The entire package is less than 1.5MB to download.  Installing this package
(and it's dependencies) is trivial with 'setup.exe'.  Just unselect all 
packages first and then select the 'cygwin' package.  That will install 
exactly what you need to have to use cygwin1.dll effectively.  If you want 
something less, you will have all you need locally to experiment with.  Be 
advised that this list doesn't support questions from home-grown 
installations.  As I mentioned before, there are just too many variables to 
make this feasible and reasonable.  So you should be very certain that you
*need* to do something non-standard before you turn away from the simplicity
and support that come from using 'setup.exe'.


--
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746                     


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