X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Message-ID: <4425CCB7.2070406@cygwin.com> Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 18:05:27 -0500 From: "Larry Hall (Cygwin)" Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051223 Fedora/1.5-0.2.fc4.remi Thunderbird/1.5 Mnenhy/0.7.3.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: Re: Why only 1 cygwin1.dll? References: <032520061719 DOT 9189 DOT 44257B9C0003FD3F000023E522058891160A050E040D0C079D0A AT comcast DOT net> <20060325174051 DOT GA9046 AT brasko DOT net> <20060325175656 DOT GD14449 AT trixie DOT casa DOT cgf DOT cx> <20060325213701 DOT GA18453 AT brasko DOT net> In-Reply-To: <20060325213701.GA18453@brasko.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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 Bob Rossi wrote: > On Sat, Mar 25, 2006 at 12:56:56PM -0500, Christopher Faylor wrote: >> On Sat, Mar 25, 2006 at 12:40:51PM -0500, Bob Rossi wrote: >>> On Sat, Mar 25, 2006 at 12:38:53PM -0500, Lev Bishop wrote: >>>> FAQ candidate? Either of Eric's explanations seem spot on, to me. And >>>> this question does come up fairly regularly. >>> In the FAQ, I think it would be a good idea to mention that this >>> limitation makes it impossible (outside of setup.exe) to package an >>> application based on Cygwin and guarantee that it runs on the host >>> machine. That is, it's impossible to determine if the cygwin1.dll is >>> already on the machine. >> It is certainly not impossible. >> >> We support the cygwin release here. That does not preclude (except for >> lack of interest apparently) someone providing providing a nifty tool >> for determining if/when to install a 3PP cygwin DLL but we all know that >> anyone who wants that automatically is only able to complain about the >> lack of such a tool. It's been a given for years in this mailing list >> and I doubt that it will change anytime soon. The best that people seem >> to be able to do is complain about how much they want to do this here >> and predict the death of cygwin if something isn't changed to >> accommodate their desires. > > Hi Christopher, > > I certainly didn't mean to complain. I really love Cygwin and wouldn't > ever predict it's death. I can't work without it on windows. > > However, I still think that it's not possible, without a horrid solution. > The problem with the third party tool is that it would need to be run every > time before the third party application is run. If the user installed Cygwin, > remove the local cygwin1.dll. If the user removed Cygwin, replace the removed > cygwin1.dll. Very odd. Does this sound like a reasonable solution to > you (although I'll admit it's possible)? What's wrong with third parties simply installing any cygwin1.dll that they want to distribute (subject to the GPL of course) in a setup-compatible location and way? Then the only question is whether to install over any existing DLL or not. That's the same old issue that all installers have with any shared DLL. Using the accepted practice of replacing any existing old DLL with a newer one (by comparing version) should work fine. Removal of shared DLLs across apps is a common problem for any Windows app too. I don't believe the Cygwin distribution and any 3rd party distributor throws a new wrinkle into this. I've seen many an uninstaller ask me if I want to delete XXX.dll that could still be needed by other apps. Same rules apply. The worst case is that one cygwin1.dll gets left on a user's system after all apps using it have been uninstalled. That's par for the course with Windows. And at least if the DLL is always in the setup- compatible location, it would be easily found and used/overwritten by any subsequent installation, 3rd party or otherwise. -- Larry Hall http://www.rfk.com RFK Partners, Inc. (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office 838 Washington Street (508) 893-9889 - FAX Holliston, MA 01746 -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/