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From: "Stuart McGraw" <smcg4191 AT frii DOT com>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: local cygwin mirror
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:55:55 -0700
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Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 04:48:45PM -0500, Igor Peshansky wrote:
> >On Sat, 11 Mar 2006, Brian Dessent wrote:
> >> Stuart McGraw wrote:
> >>>- setup.exe's idea of what to download seems to depend on what is
> >>>installed on the download machine.  Is there some way to tell setup.exe
> >>>to only download new/updated packages that are not already in the
> >>>download directory, and not pay any attention to what is installed?  I
> >>>find it a very confusing program to use.
> >>
> >>You could try temporarily renaming out of the way
> >>/etc/setup/installed.db so that setup thinks there are no packages
> >>installed.  It will then try to download all selected packages that are
> >>not already in the local download dir.  
It does?  I just tried that, and it selected all the base packages
for download, and everything else marked "skip" including a couple
packages for which there are newer versions in the remote repository.
It looks like it is acting just like it does on a completely new 
install and not paying any attention to what is already in the 
download directory.  However, I admit to being mystified by the 
package selection process in setup, so its quite posible I am  
misunderstanding something.
> >>It should be obvious that you'd
> >>do this with the "download only" option and not actually try to install
> >>anything in this state.
> >
> >I wonder if it would make sense to add a "Pure Download" checkbox that
> >is only enabled when "Download Only" is selected, with the net effect
> >of ignoring installed.db?  Just an idea for the archives...
>
> No, please.  I don't think we need YA option to confuse people and, as
> has been previously mentioned, "setup.exe is not a mirroring program".

I think such an option would make setup less confusing, not more.
I find setup's current download behavior (that what is downloaded
is dependent on what was installed rather that what is in the 
download directory) very suprising, unintuitive, and serving a 
fairly restricted set of needs.

This would not be turning setup into a "mirroring tool".  A 
mirroring tool makes an exact copy of a remote directory which 
is exactly what I don't want.

What I would expect is that when I do a download only install, 
the packages I select will be downloaded (of course).  When I do 
it again, I would expect to be presented with new/updated packages
that have been added to the remote repository in the interim and 
I can choose to download or not (via the same selection process as 
now).  I would also expect to be able to select for download packages 
that I hadn't chosen the first time.  All of this based on what is 
in the downoad directory, not what happens to be installed or not.

There doesn't seem to be any other tools available to do this.  I 
imagine that setup already has almost all the machinery it needs
to do this.  It seems like all it need to is to use the contents
on the download directory as it's database rather than
/etc/setup/insatalled.db when in download mode (but I am sure
there is more to it than that.)

I do think the result would be much more natural and useful than 
the current setup's behavior.

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