Why the rash of people bypassing setup.exe to install?

[Christopher Faylor]

I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.

So, that experiment was a bad idea. I turned off access again. Yet, I
still have the feeling that many people are downloading packages
directly (from mirrors I suppose) and then we get to experience the
maddening "I downloaded foo and it gives me an error about missing bar.
What in the world could possibly be the problem????"

Can anyone offer any explanation about this? Or maybe convince me that
I'm wrong in noticing this trend? I suppose that it is possible that
we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
but I'm wondering if there is another explanation. Maybe there is
a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...

cgf
--
Please use the resources at cygwin.com rather than sending personal email.
Special for spam email harvesters: send email to ***@sourceware.org
and be permanently blocked from mailing lists at sources.redhat.com

[Igor Pechtchanski]

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.
So, that experiment was a bad idea. I turned off access again. Yet, I
still have the feeling that many people are downloading packages
directly (from mirrors I suppose) and then we get to experience the
maddening "I downloaded foo and it gives me an error about missing bar.
What in the world could possibly be the problem????"
Can anyone offer any explanation about this? Or maybe convince me that
I'm wrong in noticing this trend? I suppose that it is possible that
we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
but I'm wondering if there is another explanation. Maybe there is
a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...
cgf

Well, guess what comes up first on a Google search for "cygwin install"?
See for yourself: <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+install> (just in
case, the first match I get is <http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/ORKiD/basic.htm>,
last updated on March 24, 2000). :-(
I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, though...
Igor

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by Igor Pechtchanski

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.
So, that experiment was a bad idea. I turned off access again. Yet, I
still have the feeling that many people are downloading packages
directly (from mirrors I suppose) and then we get to experience the
maddening "I downloaded foo and it gives me an error about missing bar.
What in the world could possibly be the problem????"
Can anyone offer any explanation about this? Or maybe convince me that
I'm wrong in noticing this trend? I suppose that it is possible that
we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
but I'm wondering if there is another explanation. Maybe there is
a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...
cgf

Well, guess what comes up first on a Google search for "cygwin install"?
See for yourself: <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+install> (just in
case, the first match I get is

<http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/ORKiD/basic.htm>,

Post by Igor Pechtchanski
last updated on March 24, 2000). :-(
I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, though...

Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....


Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

Ack. I missed that fact.

Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

cgf

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

Ack. I missed that fact.
Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

Ooooops! Too late! ;-) Only kiddin' I'm sure that's not a worry. Perhaps
changing

"Run this program any time you want to install a cygwin package."

to

"It is recommended that you use setup.exe whenever you want to install a
cygwin package. If you install or update packages manually, you are doing so
at your own risk."

at the end of the third paragraph below "What's New and How Do I Get It?"...


Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

Ack. I missed that fact.
Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

Ooooops! Too late! ;-) Only kiddin' I'm sure that's not a worry. Perhaps
changing
"Run this program any time you want to install a cygwin package."
to
"It is recommended that you use setup.exe whenever you want to install a
cygwin package. If you install or update packages manually, you are doing so
at your own risk."
at the end of the third paragraph below "What's New and How Do I Get It?"...

I don't think people are actually reading that paragraph at all, though. I
think that's part of the problem.

cgf

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

Ack. I missed that fact.
Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

Ooooops! Too late! ;-) Only kiddin' I'm sure that's not a worry. Perhaps
changing
"Run this program any time you want to install a cygwin package."
to
"It is recommended that you use setup.exe whenever you want to install a
cygwin package. If you install or update packages manually, you are doing so
at your own risk."
at the end of the third paragraph below "What's New and How Do I Get It?"...

I don't think people are actually reading that paragraph at all, though.

I

Post by Christopher Faylor
think that's part of the problem.

Then there's not much you can do. If user's don't read these informative
pieces of information, that would cut down the superfluous "bug" reports,
then the easiest thing to me would be to send a reply of "Read blah...".
They'll, *hopefully*, get the message.

Sorry I just noticed something I sent 20 minutes ago has got through even
though I got an "supposed" SMTP error...Brrrrr


Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

Ack. I missed that fact.
Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

Ooooops! Too late! ;-) Only kiddin' I'm sure that's not a worry. Perhaps
changing
"Run this program any time you want to install a cygwin package."
to
"It is recommended that you use setup.exe whenever you want to install a
cygwin package. If you install or update packages manually, you are doing so
at your own risk."
at the end of the third paragraph below "What's New and How Do I Get It?"...

I don't think people are actually reading that paragraph at all, though. I
think that's part of the problem.

As a preventative measure, how about adding some embedded tags into the
cygwin.com home or install pages so that they'll have a higher hit-point
ratio for various search combinations. Something like adding:

<!--
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install
how to install cygwin how to install cygwin how to install cygwin
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install
how to install cygwin how to install cygwin how to install cygwin
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install
how to install cygwin how to install cygwin how to install cygwin
etc...
-->

The next time the various web crawlers inspect the page they might give a
larger weight to this page for the various word combinations. Or have
web crawlers changed such that this doesn't work anymore?

Post by Christopher Faylor
cgf

[andrew clarke]

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Christopher Faylor
I don't think people are actually reading that paragraph at all, though. I
think that's part of the problem.

As a preventative measure, how about adding some embedded tags into the
cygwin.com home or install pages so that they'll have a higher hit-point
<!--
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install
The next time the various web crawlers inspect the page they might give a
larger weight to this page for the various word combinations. Or have
web crawlers changed such that this doesn't work anymore?

I think most people use Google these days, where this technique doesn't
work any more. Instead, Google weighs pages by (among other things) counting
the number of links to that page, ie. the more people that link to a page with
the text "cygwin install" on it, the higher it will rank in Google.

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

Ack. I missed that fact.
Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

Ooooops! Too late! ;-) Only kiddin' I'm sure that's not a worry. Perhaps
changing
"Run this program any time you want to install a cygwin package."
to
"It is recommended that you use setup.exe whenever you want to install a
cygwin package. If you install or update packages manually, you are doing so
at your own risk."
at the end of the third paragraph below "What's New and How Do I Get It?"...

I don't think people are actually reading that paragraph at all, though. I
think that's part of the problem.

As a preventative measure, how about adding some embedded tags into the
cygwin.com home or install pages so that they'll have a higher hit-point
<!--
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install
how to install cygwin how to install cygwin how to install cygwin
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install
how to install cygwin how to install cygwin how to install cygwin
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install
how to install cygwin how to install cygwin how to install cygwin
etc...
-->
The next time the various web crawlers inspect the page they might give a
larger weight to this page for the various word combinations. Or have
web crawlers changed such that this doesn't work anymore?

I'll try that. Thanks.

cgf

[Robert Collins]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Peter A. Castro
Or have
web crawlers changed such that this doesn't work anymore?

I'll try that. Thanks.

I wouldn't: google actively lowers your page ranking when it sees such
garbage.

Rob

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Peter A. Castro
Or have
web crawlers changed such that this doesn't work anymore?

I'll try that. Thanks.

I wouldn't: google actively lowers your page ranking when it sees such
garbage.

Where, exactly, did you read this (a link to some doc would be
enightening)? I see nothing about this in Googles documentation of Page
Ranking. And, google isn't the only search engine out there. I'd think
you'd want to try and get as much exposure as possible in as many engines
as possible.

Post by Robert Collins
Rob

[Robert Collins]

Post by Peter A. Castro
Where, exactly, did you read this (a link to some doc would be
enightening)? I see nothing about this in Googles documentation of Page
Ranking. And, google isn't the only search engine out there. I'd think
you'd want to try and get as much exposure as possible in as many engines
as possible.

An interview on slashdot some time back.

Rob

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
Where, exactly, did you read this (a link to some doc would be
enightening)? I see nothing about this in Googles documentation of Page
Ranking. And, google isn't the only search engine out there. I'd think
you'd want to try and get as much exposure as possible in as many engines
as possible.

An interview on slashdot some time back.

And you believe everything you read on slashdot ?-)

Seriously, I can't seem to find this interview. I've been reading
several articles on google lately (like the paper "The PageRank Citation
Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web (1998)"). I've been searching
articles on google, itself, as well as slashdot and several other search
engines, and they don't say anything about text repetition in a page
devaluing it's ranking.

If you can either give me a link or a specific title from the article,
I'll see if I can find it.

Anyways, to get a better ranking in Google, you'd need some important
sites to link to Cygwin's install page. I've always wondered how,
exactly, an "important" site is determined. Simply having lots of links
to your site isn't enough to make it "important". I wonder if RedHat's
site is considdered "important" enough. If so, see if maybe the RedHat
folks would be willing to place a Cygwin link on their home page.

Post by Robert Collins
Rob

[Robert Collins]

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
Where, exactly, did you read this (a link to some doc would be
enightening)? I see nothing about this in Googles documentation of Page
Ranking. And, google isn't the only search engine out there. I'd think
you'd want to try and get as much exposure as possible in as many engines
as possible.

An interview on slashdot some time back.

And you believe everything you read on slashdot ?-)

It was from the google director of technology.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/03/1352239&mode=thread

BUT: it doesn't have the comment I recalled. Ermm, oops.

Post by Peter A. Castro
Seriously, I can't seem to find this interview. I've been reading
several articles on google lately (like the paper "The PageRank Citation
Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web (1998)"). I've been searching
articles on google, itself, as well as slashdot and several other search
engines, and they don't say anything about text repetition in a page
devaluing it's ranking.
If you can either give me a link or a specific title from the article,
I'll see if I can find it.
Anyways, to get a better ranking in Google, you'd need some important
sites to link to Cygwin's install page. I've always wondered how,
exactly, an "important" site is determined. Simply having lots of links
to your site isn't enough to make it "important". I wonder if RedHat's
site is considdered "important" enough. If so, see if maybe the RedHat
folks would be willing to place a Cygwin link on their home page.

I thought that having lots of links to your site was *exactly* what made
it important.

Anyway I can't find the page where I got that understanding from.

The context that I can recall was that do defeat 'artificial' elevation
of sites to the top of searches in google, google has heuristics to
detect such attempts. The heuristics include lots of links to yourself
(there was a shopping site somewhere that google effectively delisted,
even though there was no attempt to make it rank highly, simply because
the sites dynamically generated product list appeared to be a
rank-elevating attempt), and detection of other such things (like
repeated keywords). I hope this helps you find the reference.
Rob

[Peter A. Castro]

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
Where, exactly, did you read this (a link to some doc would be
enightening)? I see nothing about this in Googles documentation of Page
Ranking. And, google isn't the only search engine out there. I'd think
you'd want to try and get as much exposure as possible in as many engines
as possible.

An interview on slashdot some time back.

And you believe everything you read on slashdot ?-)

It was from the google director of technology.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/03/1352239&mode=thread
BUT: it doesn't have the comment I recalled. Ermm, oops.

Oops, indeed :) Thanks for the article, though. I might continue my own
research as a side hobby.

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
Seriously, I can't seem to find this interview. I've been reading
several articles on google lately (like the paper "The PageRank Citation
Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web (1998)"). I've been searching
articles on google, itself, as well as slashdot and several other search
engines, and they don't say anything about text repetition in a page
devaluing it's ranking.
If you can either give me a link or a specific title from the article,
I'll see if I can find it.
Anyways, to get a better ranking in Google, you'd need some important
sites to link to Cygwin's install page. I've always wondered how,
exactly, an "important" site is determined. Simply having lots of links
to your site isn't enough to make it "important". I wonder if RedHat's
site is considdered "important" enough. If so, see if maybe the RedHat
folks would be willing to place a Cygwin link on their home page.

I thought that having lots of links to your site was *exactly* what made
it important.

No, it's lots of *others pages* linking to *your pages* that's the key.
Linking to yourself doesn't make you self important in googles eyes.
They call that a type of rank sink and their ranking system
computationally factors such loops out (or at least it doesn't
artificially elevate the ranking of your self-linked pages).

However, a hierarchy of links from other pages can create a type of
cascade effect that could lead to a higher ranking. My original thought
was weither some site, such as redhat.com, had a sufficiently large
number of forward and back-links to it to be considder an important site.
If so, adding a link to cygwin might help elevate the ranking of cygwin's
pages. It's some what like a social hierarchy.

Post by Robert Collins
Anyway I can't find the page where I got that understanding from.
The context that I can recall was that do defeat 'artificial' elevation
of sites to the top of searches in google, google has heuristics to
detect such attempts. The heuristics include lots of links to yourself
(there was a shopping site somewhere that google effectively delisted,
even though there was no attempt to make it rank highly, simply because
the sites dynamically generated product list appeared to be a
rank-elevating attempt), and detection of other such things (like
repeated keywords). I hope this helps you find the reference.

Yep, however, googles ranking system does not appear to be affected by
the actual content of the page (or at least it's less important in the
ranking scheme), thus having lots of embedded comment strings, such as I
suggested earlier, would not be a detriment to googles ranking of Cygwin
pages, but might help improve its status for those engines which do
perform word/phrase count evaluation.

Well, that's enough of that. I feel this is a dead-end thread now and
should be considdered closed. Time to get back to porting apps to Cygwin :)

Post by Robert Collins
Rob

[Jeremy Hetzler]

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
Where, exactly, did you read this (a link to some doc would be
enightening)? I see nothing about this in Googles documentation

of Page

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
Ranking. And, google isn't the only search engine out

there. I'd think

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
you'd want to try and get as much exposure as possible in as many

engines

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Peter A. Castro
as possible.

An interview on slashdot some time back.

And you believe everything you read on slashdot ?-)

It was from the google director of technology.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/03/1352239&mode=thread
BUT: it doesn't have the comment I recalled. Ermm, oops.

Oops, indeed :) Thanks for the article, though. I might continue my own
research as a side hobby.

This article (<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google.html>) has
some good information about Google's ranking algorithms and the people who
work to overcome them.

Jeremy

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Peter A. Castro

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Peter A. Castro
Or have
web crawlers changed such that this doesn't work anymore?

I'll try that. Thanks.

I wouldn't: google actively lowers your page ranking when it sees such
garbage.

Where, exactly, did you read this (a link to some doc would be
enightening)? I see nothing about this in Googles documentation of Page
Ranking. And, google isn't the only search engine out there. I'd think
you'd want to try and get as much exposure as possible in as many engines
as possible.

That was exactly my thinking. I knew that google didn't fall prey to
the duplicated keyword scenario but I thought it would be useful for
other search engines.

cgf

[Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)]

Of Christopher Faylor
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 10:23 PM

-- 8< --

Post by Peter A. Castro
<!--
cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install cygwin install

cygwin install

-- 8< --

Post by Peter A. Castro
The next time the various web crawlers inspect the page they might give a
larger weight to this page for the various word combinations. Or have
web crawlers changed such that this doesn't work anymore?

I'll try that. Thanks.
cgf

Hmm... I think there is a "meta" tag somewhere in HTML-specs... can't
remember where right now. Meta-data is for search engines; hrm... google!
i.e:
http://www.google.com/search?q=meta%2Bhtml&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=sv&lr=
- #1 ->
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/meta.html

/Hannu E K Nevalainen, Mariefred, Sweden

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

Ack. I missed that fact.
Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

Ooooops! Too late! ;-) Only kiddin' I'm sure that's not a worry. Perhaps
changing

"Run this program any time you want to install a cygwin package."

to

"It is recommended that you use setup.exe whenever you want to install a
cygwin package. If you install or update packages manually, you are doing so
at your own risk."

at the end of the third paragraph below "What's New and How Do I Get It?"...


Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
Well, Gary (Gary R. Van Sickle) is the maintainer of that page, so....

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And one hell of an attentive one at that! ;-)

Post by Christopher Faylor
Ack. I missed that fact.
Don't send Gary email about this! I'm sure he doesn't need it.

Well actually it probably wouldn't hurt; I'd forgotten all about this not too
long after I set it up! When I did finally remember, my account had been
"disabled" (assumedly from disuse) and I couldn't even find the contact info for
the woodsoup guy.

I'll get on the ball here though and take this down. Maybe that'll eliminate
some "B20" inquiries.

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer. Patriot.

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Igor Pechtchanski

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.
So, that experiment was a bad idea. I turned off access again. Yet, I
still have the feeling that many people are downloading packages
directly (from mirrors I suppose) and then we get to experience the
maddening "I downloaded foo and it gives me an error about missing bar.
What in the world could possibly be the problem????"
Can anyone offer any explanation about this? Or maybe convince me that
I'm wrong in noticing this trend? I suppose that it is possible that
we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
but I'm wondering if there is another explanation. Maybe there is
a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...
cgf

Well, guess what comes up first on a Google search for "cygwin install"?
See for yourself: <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+install> (just in
case, the first match I get is <http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/ORKiD/basic.htm>,
last updated on March 24, 2000). :-(

This is interesting but it doesn't really explain the problem since the site
is so outdated. sourceware.cygnus.com doesn't even exist anymore.

Post by Igor Pechtchanski
I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, though...

How about if every able-bodied cygwin-mailing-list person sends email to this
person and asks them to take the site down.

FWIW, I've recently sent email to Mumit Khan for similar reasons. His
"ancient" gnu-win32 site still shows up in google and some of the
outdated techniques espoused there demonstrably cause confusion.

cgf

[Charles Wilson]

Post by Christopher Faylor
FWIW, I've recently sent email to Mumit Khan for similar reasons. His
"ancient" gnu-win32 site still shows up in google and some of the
outdated techniques espoused there demonstrably cause confusion.

It's even worse that you think. Last week's LWN contained a newssnippet
about "Xmingwin" -- a linux-build, mingw-target cross compiler leveraged
off of Earnie's mingw. Which, of course, has a heritage from cygwin.

If you read the article that lwn refers to,
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sc10.html
you find that ITS "resources" section contains a ton of links to a lot
of old, unmaintained, and otherwise inaccurate mingw and cygwin sites --
including two separate links to Mumit's pages.

And this is a NEW, January 2003 article in IBM's developerWorks.

Sigh.

--Chuck

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

[snip]

Post by Igor Pechtchanski
Well, guess what comes up first on a Google search for "cygwin install"?
See for yourself: <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+install> (just in
case, the first match I get is
<http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/ORKiD/basic.htm>,
last updated on March 24, 2000). :-(

That page worked a lot better in B20.

BAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHAHHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

OH MAN I STILL GOT IT! ;-)

[Randall R Schulz]

Post by Igor Pechtchanski

Post by Christopher Faylor
...
Can anyone offer any explanation about this? Or maybe convince me that
I'm wrong in noticing this trend? I suppose that it is possible that
we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
but I'm wondering if there is another explanation. Maybe there is
a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...
cgf

Well, guess what comes up first on a Google search for "cygwin install"?
See for yourself: <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+install> (just in
case, the first match I get is
<http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/ORKiD/basic.htm>,
last updated on March 24, 2000). :-(
I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, though...
Igor

Wow. Classic Cygwin humor, number 1 on Google!

Did you notice the copyright holder for these pages?

I still think APHC's joke show is funnier.


RRS

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Post by Randall R Schulz

Post by Igor Pechtchanski

Post by Christopher Faylor
...
Can anyone offer any explanation about this? Or maybe convince me that
I'm wrong in noticing this trend? I suppose that it is possible that
we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
but I'm wondering if there is another explanation. Maybe there is
a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...
cgf

Well, guess what comes up first on a Google search for "cygwin install"?
See for yourself: <http://google.com/search?q=cygwin+install> (just in
case, the first match I get is
<http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/ORKiD/basic.htm>,
last updated on March 24, 2000). :-(
I don't know if there's anything that can be done about it, though...
Igor

Wow. Classic Cygwin humor, number 1 on Google!

I think something's wildly wrong with the world when my handful of crusty old
pages end up as the #1 Cygwin hit on Google. ;-) I can assure everybody that
I've done nothing to try to make that the case.

Post by Randall R Schulz
Did you notice the copyright holder for these pages?

Um... a... hehehe... well ya see... ;-)

Post by Randall R Schulz
I still think APHC's joke show is funnier.

Uhhg... you are one sick man Mr. Schulz. ;-)

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer. Patriot.

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle
I think something's wildly wrong with the world when my handful of
crusty old pages end up as the #1 Cygwin hit on Google. ;-) I can
assure everybody that I've done nothing to try to make that the case.

I think it's part of the world-wide Cygwin conspiracy.

Btw, I notice that "cygwin installation" is even more annoying. The
second hit brings you directly to a GPL violation, AFAICT.

cgf

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle
I think something's wildly wrong with the world when my handful of
crusty old pages end up as the #1 Cygwin hit on Google. ;-) I can
assure everybody that I've done nothing to try to make that the case.

I think it's part of the world-wide Cygwin conspiracy.
Btw, I notice that "cygwin installation" is even more annoying. The
second hit brings you directly to a GPL violation, AFAICT.

The ptolemy guy?:

"The file we provide includes the following packages and their source code"

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle
I think something's wildly wrong with the world when my handful of
crusty old pages end up as the #1 Cygwin hit on Google. ;-) I can
assure everybody that I've done nothing to try to make that the case.

I think it's part of the world-wide Cygwin conspiracy.
Btw, I notice that "cygwin installation" is even more annoying. The
second hit brings you directly to a GPL violation, AFAICT.

"The file we provide includes the following packages and their source code"

Oops. Nevermind.

cgf

[John Morrison]

Why not have two links on the page...

1) Cygwin Setup
2) Cygwin Package Maintainer

both of which are symb-links to setup.exe ;)

J.

[Randall R Schulz]

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle

Post by Randall R Schulz
Wow. Classic Cygwin humor, number 1 on Google!

I think something's wildly wrong with the world when my handful of crusty old
pages end up as the #1 Cygwin hit on Google. ;-) I can assure everybody that
I've done nothing to try to make that the case.

Post by Randall R Schulz
Did you notice the copyright holder for these pages?

Um... a... hehehe... well ya see... ;-)

Post by Randall R Schulz
I still think APHC's joke show is funnier.

Uhhg... you are one sick man Mr. Schulz. ;-)

Is that one of those pot / kettle things?

After all, you can't spell "Sickle" without "sick."

RRS

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle
--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer. Patriot.

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Post by Randall R Schulz

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle

Post by Randall R Schulz
Wow. Classic Cygwin humor, number 1 on Google!

I think something's wildly wrong with the world when my handful of crusty old
pages end up as the #1 Cygwin hit on Google. ;-) I can assure everybody that
I've done nothing to try to make that the case.

Post by Randall R Schulz
Did you notice the copyright holder for these pages?

Um... a... hehehe... well ya see... ;-)

Post by Randall R Schulz
I still think APHC's joke show is funnier.

Uhhg... you are one sick man Mr. Schulz. ;-)

Is that one of those pot / kettle things?

Only if you think "The Three Stooges" is not the pinnacle of human humorous
endeavors.

Post by Randall R Schulz
After all, you can't spell "Sickle" without "sick."

Touche, mon ami, touche!

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer. Patriot.

[Robert Citek]

Post by Christopher Faylor
So, that experiment was a bad idea. I turned off access again. Yet, I
still have the feeling that many people are downloading packages
directly (from mirrors I suppose) and then we get to experience the
maddening "I downloaded foo and it gives me an error about missing bar.
What in the world could possibly be the problem????"

They are using apt-get to install Cygwin. :-)
[ wishful thinking ]

Imagine installing, upgrading, and managing a bunch of OpenSource Software
(not just Cygwin) on a Windows machine with 'apt-get.'

Regards,
- Robert

[Mathias Gygax]

Post by Robert Citek
They are using apt-get to install Cygwin. :-)
[ wishful thinking ]

you remind me of something. i once tried exactly this, but failed on
some C++ stuff which i could not resolve. some includes failed, but i
guess its within the apt-get source and the win32 #defines. dunno. gave
up and stomped it back to earth.

Post by Robert Citek
Imagine installing, upgrading, and managing a bunch of OpenSource Software
(not just Cygwin) on a Windows machine with 'apt-get.'

this is on my wishlist too :)

- regards, turrican

[John M. Adams]

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.
Can anyone offer any explanation about this?

Well, I've never tried to install via anything but the setup.exe.
However, it is not obvious to me how to just get a single package that
way. The last few times I tried to do that, I ended up getting a
massive amount of stuff. Maybe some of your ftp users are similarly
confused.

How do you get just 1 package via setup.exe?

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by John M. Adams

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.
Can anyone offer any explanation about this?

Well, I've never tried to install via anything but the setup.exe.
However, it is not obvious to me how to just get a single package that
way. The last few times I tried to do that, I ended up getting a
massive amount of stuff. Maybe some of your ftp users are similarly
confused.

Setyp.exe installs all of the packages in the Base category. So when you
install everything from that category get's installed. When you have a mass
of packages installed, like me with everything, setup checks to see if those
packages have been updated on your mirror and if so marks them as Install.

Post by John M. Adams
How do you get just 1 package via setup.exe?

Just click on it until it (the package) is set to Install. If you have a lot
of packages where updates are available they will be set to install so you
will need to cycle through the packages you don't want to upgrade until it
says Keep. I believe there is quite a few updated features in CVS for
setup.exe so there's probably a new easier way of doing it.


Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[andrew clarke]

Post by John M. Adams
How do you get just 1 package via setup.exe?

When you reach the Select Packages dialog of setup.exe, hit the View
button (the tiny one on the upper-right...). In the table there is a
column called "New" (I don't know why it's called that). If you click
on the "cycle glyph" (that's what the FAQ calls it!), or just next to
it in the New column, for a package, you change what Setup will do with
that package. For packages not already installed you can either Skip
the package, or choose the version you want to install (occasionally
you will have multiple versions of a package to choose from). Already-
installed packages will be listed as "Keep" unless a newer version is
available.

So, to install a single package you will want to mark everything you
already have installed as Keep, and everything else as Skip, then choose
the version of the package you want to install. Setup will re-add any
dependencies, if required.

Unfortunately, if you just want to install a single package, and newer
versions of other packages that you already have installed have been
released, it's cumbersome to tell Setup not to upgrade those other
packages (ie. mark them all as Keep), because you have to scroll through
the entire list looking for version numbers of those other packages, so
you can set them all to Keep.

Phew.

[Robert Collins]

Post by andrew clarke

Post by John M. Adams
How do you get just 1 package via setup.exe?

...

Post by andrew clarke
So, to install a single package you will want to mark everything you
already have installed as Keep, and everything else as Skip, then choose
the version of the package you want to install. Setup will re-add any
dependencies, if required.

There is an easier way..
click on on the button that starts out as 'Categories' until it shows
partial. Then set all those packages to 'keep' if you don't want to
upgrade them.

Now click on partial to get back to categories, browse for your package,
and then click it's version to select the one you want.

Bingo.

Rob

[Eduardo Osorio Armenta]

I have some troubles with
info

a lot of packages show their information
but not the all
that i have under
/usr/info

for example binutils.info

how can i fixed that?

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/

[Joshua Daniel Franklin]

Post by Eduardo Osorio Armenta
I have some troubles with
info
a lot of packages show their information
but not the all
that i have under
/usr/info
for example binutils.info

Eduardo,

This happens because some misbehaved packages overwrite the
"dir" file (for cygwin, /usr/info/dir) with their own. This has
come up several times and so there is now a update-info-dir
package that should take care of this. See if

ls /etc/postinstall/update-info-dir.sh*

reports that the file is there and if it has a ".done" extension.
If not you may need to re-run setup.exe, or the file directly, like this:

sh /etc/postinstall/update-info-dir.sh

Note that you can always run info or pinfo directly on an info file like:

info -f /usr/info/binutils.info

or

pinfo -f /usr/info/binutils.info

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

[snip]

Post by andrew clarke
Unfortunately, if you just want to install a single package, and newer
versions of other packages that you already have installed have been
released, it's cumbersome to tell Setup not to upgrade those other
packages (ie. mark them all as Keep), because you have to scroll through
the entire list looking for version numbers of those other packages, so
you can set them all to Keep.

There... is... another... SkywalkerEEHHHHHHHH <keels over dead>. There are
*three* chooser views. The third one is the one you want; it lists only things
that Setup wants to change. It's a much shorter list, and you just go through
those and click them to keep and you're done.

I don't blame you for not knowing that; *I* didn't until fairly recently, and
I'm coding a lot of the GUI!

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer. Patriot.

[andrew clarke]

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.

If I may, speaking on behalf of some of the less-technical Cygwin users,
some points:

Obviously for simple .tar.bz2 files without any dependencies or post-
install scripts, etc, untarring would appear to users to be a harmless
thing to do.

I suspect people aren't reading the notes near the bottom of
http://www.cygwin.com/download.html, or if they are, they don't believe
what they read, notably the "Installing Cygwin using this method [untar]
is not recommended." bit, because there's no explanation as to why
it's not recommended.

Section 2 of the FAQ might also put people off using Setup because it's
described as a "work-in-progress" and seemingly a bit of a moving target.

Also, people may be put off by the fact that there's no recommended
way (to my knowledge) to install Cygwin packages from the command-line,
(a la "apt-get", "pkg_add", "rpm -i", etc).

Also, it may be that Setup is failing (eg. aborted downloads) for one
reason or another, for more people than you think, so people are resorting
to using Wget, or their browser, or something.

Then there are the numerous issues with the UI of the Setup program
itself which no doubt dissuade people from using it.

All these things combined can't really help much.

[andrew clarke]

Post by andrew clarke
Section 2 of the FAQ might also put people off using Setup because it's
described as a "work-in-progress" and seemingly a bit of a moving target.

Actually, just out of interest, will new Setup programs always be
backward-compatible (within reason) with packages designed for old
versions of Setup? The point being, a user should expect to be
able to install an old .tar.bz2 file from a local directory using
the latest version of Setup. If not, it should be recommended that
users keep their old version of setup.exe (and not just overwrite
it with the newest setup.exe) because the new version may not be able
to install packages designed for the old version, because it's a
work-in-progress.

"Expect features and functionality to change."

Unless the FAQ is inaccurate!

--08:06:16-- http://cygwin.com/setup.exe

4 Last-Modified: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:50:47 GMT

Hmm, nobody is working on it after all?

[Max Bowsher]

Post by andrew clarke

Post by andrew clarke
Section 2 of the FAQ might also put people off using Setup because
it's described as a "work-in-progress" and seemingly a bit of a
moving target.

Actually, just out of interest, will new Setup programs always be
backward-compatible (within reason) with packages designed for old
versions of Setup? The point being, a user should expect to be
able to install an old .tar.bz2 file from a local directory using
the latest version of Setup. If not, it should be recommended that
users keep their old version of setup.exe (and not just overwrite
it with the newest setup.exe) because the new version may not be able
to install packages designed for the old version, because it's a
work-in-progress.

The package format has never broken compatibility yet, and I don't think it
ever will.

Post by andrew clarke
--08:06:16-- http://cygwin.com/setup.exe
4 Last-Modified: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:50:47 GMT
Hmm, nobody is working on it after all?

Oh, lots of work has been going on, but all in CVS.


Max.

[Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc.)]

Post by andrew clarke

Post by andrew clarke
Section 2 of the FAQ might also put people off using Setup because it's
described as a "work-in-progress" and seemingly a bit of a moving target.

Actually, just out of interest, will new Setup programs always be
backward-compatible (within reason) with packages designed for old
versions of Setup? The point being, a user should expect to be
able to install an old .tar.bz2 file from a local directory using
the latest version of Setup. If not, it should be recommended that
users keep their old version of setup.exe (and not just overwrite
it with the newest setup.exe) because the new version may not be able
to install packages designed for the old version, because it's a
work-in-progress.
"Expect features and functionality to change."
Unless the FAQ is inaccurate!

There are no plans to change the format of the packages. I can't foresee
a need to ever do this. Don't worry about such things unless you've
been given explicit need to do so. It will give you ulcers! ;-)

Post by andrew clarke
--08:06:16-- http://cygwin.com/setup.exe
4 Last-Modified: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:50:47 GMT
Hmm, nobody is working on it after all?

The new version of setup is being actively worked on. Need proof?
Check out the cygwin-apps email archive. There's been lots of work
since 7/4/2002. It makes for good reading if this is the kind of
information you crave.

[Robert Collins]

Post by andrew clarke
--08:06:16-- http://cygwin.com/setup.exe
4 Last-Modified: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 00:50:47 GMT
Hmm, nobody is working on it after all?

Thats the production release. We change that only when we are *sure*
that the new version is fully stable.

Rob

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by andrew clarke

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.

If I may, speaking on behalf of some of the less-technical Cygwin users,
Obviously for simple .tar.bz2 files without any dependencies or post-
install scripts, etc, untarring would appear to users to be a harmless
thing to do.

If you are a nontechnical cygwin user, then why would you be making
any determination of what is harmless or not harmless? I would think
that it would be the reverse -- people who really know what they're
doing (or think they know what they're doing) would be untarring.

Post by andrew clarke
I suspect people aren't reading the notes near the bottom of
http://www.cygwin.com/download.html, or if they are, they don't believe
what they read, notably the "Installing Cygwin using this method [untar]
is not recommended." bit, because there's no explanation as to why
it's not recommended.

Again, if you're nontechnical why would you draw the conclusion "They didn't
tell me why, so it must be ok"? And, even if you did come to that conclusion,
wouldn't it make sense to *try* setup.exe when the download/untar combination
obviously doesn't work?

Post by andrew clarke
Section 2 of the FAQ might also put people off using Setup because it's
described as a "work-in-progress" and seemingly a bit of a moving target.

Sorry, but you're assuming a lot of stuff here that doesn't make sense to
me.

I see no indication that anyone is reading documentation and coming to
this kind of conclusion. It seems more like they are bypassing the web
page entirely for some reason.

Post by andrew clarke
Also, it may be that Setup is failing (eg. aborted downloads) for one
reason or another, for more people than you think, so people are resorting
to using Wget, or their browser, or something.

That's a viable theory. This could well be. However, it doesn't explain
an increase in this behavior unless cygwin has just become more popular
and the 1% of people who decide not to use setup.exe have just become
1% of a larger number.

Post by andrew clarke
Then there are the numerous issues with the UI of the Setup program
itself which no doubt dissuade people from using it.

I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are unaware
of the setup program entirely.

cgf

[Robert Collins]

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are unaware
of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.

After the install completes..

"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again if
you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or Update
your install with the latest versions of your installed packages."

Rob

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are
unaware of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again
if you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or
Update your install with the latest versions of your installed
packages."

I like it. Apparently it is extremely confusing to many people that running
"setup.exe" again is how you update your system, Microsoft conventions not
withstanding.

cgf

[Corinna Vinschen]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are
unaware of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again
if you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or
Update your install with the latest versions of your installed
packages."

I like it. Apparently it is extremely confusing to many people that running
"setup.exe" again is how you update your system, Microsoft conventions not
withstanding.

So... hey, why is it called "setup"? Isn't it, in the first place the
"Cygwin Package Manager"? "cpm"? Even the suffix of the archive files
could be cpm...

Corinna

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by Corinna Vinschen

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are
unaware of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again
if you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or
Update your install with the latest versions of your installed
packages."

I like it. Apparently it is extremely confusing to many people that running
"setup.exe" again is how you update your system, Microsoft conventions not
withstanding.

So... hey, why is it called "setup"? Isn't it, in the first place the
"Cygwin Package Manager"? "cpm"? Even the suffix of the archive files
could be cpm...

RedHat! RedHat!! RedHat!!!

Sorry ;-)


Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Rick Rankin]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are
unaware of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again
if you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or
Update your install with the latest versions of your installed
packages."

I like it. Apparently it is extremely confusing to many people that

running

Post by Christopher Faylor
"setup.exe" again is how you update your system, Microsoft conventions not
withstanding.

So... hey, why is it called "setup"? Isn't it, in the first place the
"Cygwin Package Manager"? "cpm"? Even the suffix of the archive files
could be cpm...

Ahh, CP/M -- now *those* were the days... ;-)

Anyway, I like the idea of calling it something akin to "package manager". The
name "setup" seems to imply a one-time action. Although, if the name were
changed to, say, "Cygwin Package Manager" as suggested, there might have to be
some additional verbage to explain to first-time users that you use the package
manager to do both the initial install *and* subsequent updates.

--Rick

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Rick Rankin

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are
unaware of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again
if you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or
Update your install with the latest versions of your installed
packages."

I like it. Apparently it is extremely confusing to many people that

running

Post by Christopher Faylor
"setup.exe" again is how you update your system, Microsoft conventions not
withstanding.

So... hey, why is it called "setup"? Isn't it, in the first place the
"Cygwin Package Manager"? "cpm"? Even the suffix of the archive files
could be cpm...

Ahh, CP/M -- now *those* were the days... ;-)
Anyway, I like the idea of calling it something akin to "package
manager". The name "setup" seems to imply a one-time action.
Although, if the name were changed to, say, "Cygwin Package Manager" as
suggested, there might have to be some additional verbage to explain to
first-time users that you use the package manager to do both the
initial install *and* subsequent updates.

We, IMO, are straying from the original question. The issue of what
setup.exe is named really is irrelevant, IMO. I sincerely doubt that
its name is responsible for people making the decision to download
packages by hand. If names were important then no one would be using
cygwin at all.

"cyg" "win"? What does that have to do with UNIX emulation for Windows?
I guess I won't use it because the name makes no sense.

cgf

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Post by Corinna Vinschen

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are
unaware of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again
if you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or
Update your install with the latest versions of your installed
packages."

I like it. Apparently it is extremely confusing to many people that running
"setup.exe" again is how you update your system, Microsoft conventions not
withstanding.

So... hey, why is it called "setup"?

Instead of "Install".

Post by Corinna Vinschen
Isn't it, in the first place the
"Cygwin Package Manager"? "cpm"? Even the suffix of the archive files
could be cpm...

It's not at all unprecedented for Windows "installers" to be "dual-use" like
Cygwin Setup is. The control panel API even directly supports such use (eg.
change/remove buttons). Change the name to "Cygwin Package Manager", and people
will think you need cygwin already installed to use it. Let's keep the "Setup"
moniker, strive to keep that end as Windowesqe as makes sense, and let the
unavoidable chips fall where they may.

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer. Patriot.

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Gary R. Van Sickle

Isn't it, in the first place the "Cygwin Package Manager"? "cpm"?
Even the suffix of the archive files could be cpm...

It's not at all unprecedented for Windows "installers" to be "dual-use"
like Cygwin Setup is. The control panel API even directly supports
such use (eg. change/remove buttons). Change the name to "Cygwin
Package Manager", and people will think you need cygwin already
installed to use it. Let's keep the "Setup" moniker, strive to keep
that end as Windowesqe as makes sense, and let the unavoidable chips
fall where they may.

Hear, here.

cgf

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Post by Robert Collins

Post by Christopher Faylor
I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are unaware
of the setup program entirely.

Hmm, I think we should add a new screen to setup.exe.
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again if
you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or Update
your install with the latest versions of your installed packages."

I'm working towards exactly that. That's the kind of thing most regular
installers have on their "Finish" page.

BTW Rob: Did you see my "bigger chooser" patch? Any ETA on when it will be in
CVS?

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer. Patriot.

[andrew clarke]

Post by Christopher Faylor
If you are a nontechnical cygwin user, then why would you be making
any determination of what is harmless or not harmless? I would think
that it would be the reverse -- people who really know what they're
doing (or think they know what they're doing) would be untarring.

Then the problem may be due to nontechnical people thinking they know
what they're doing. ;-)

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by andrew clarke
I suspect people aren't reading the notes near the bottom of
http://www.cygwin.com/download.html, or if they are, they don't believe
what they read, notably the "Installing Cygwin using this method [untar]
is not recommended." bit, because there's no explanation as to why
it's not recommended.

Again, if you're nontechnical why would you draw the conclusion "They didn't
tell me why, so it must be ok"? And, even if you did come to that conclusion,
wouldn't it make sense to *try* setup.exe when the download/untar combination
obviously doesn't work?

There may be some sort of "it worked once with package XYZ, so it should
work with package ABC too" mentality going on.

Post by Christopher Faylor
That's a viable theory. This could well be. However, it doesn't explain
an increase in this behavior unless cygwin has just become more popular
and the 1% of people who decide not to use setup.exe have just become
1% of a larger number.

Quite likely.

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by andrew clarke
Then there are the numerous issues with the UI of the Setup program
itself which no doubt dissuade people from using it.

I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are unaware
of the setup program entirely.

So what are these people using to extract the package contents? AFAIK
WinZip doesn't support bzip2, so something tells me they must've used
Setup at least once just to install Cygwin's bzip2 package, unless they
went to a bit of effort to find a non-Cygwin bzip2 decompressor, then
open the .tar with WinZip.

Hmm, actually, the first hit for bzip2 on Google leads to
http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/ where there is a non-Cygwin Win32 version
of bzip2 just a page down, which I find is a little ironic, but probably
little more than coincidence. :-)

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by andrew clarke

Post by Christopher Faylor
If you are a nontechnical cygwin user, then why would you be making
any determination of what is harmless or not harmless? I would think
that it would be the reverse -- people who really know what they're
doing (or think they know what they're doing) would be untarring.

Then the problem may be due to nontechnical people thinking they know
what they're doing. ;-)

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by andrew clarke
I suspect people aren't reading the notes near the bottom of
http://www.cygwin.com/download.html, or if they are, they don't believe
what they read, notably the "Installing Cygwin using this method [untar]
is not recommended." bit, because there's no explanation as to why
it's not recommended.

Again, if you're nontechnical why would you draw the conclusion "They didn't
tell me why, so it must be ok"? And, even if you did come to that conclusion,
wouldn't it make sense to *try* setup.exe when the download/untar combination
obviously doesn't work?

There may be some sort of "it worked once with package XYZ, so it should
work with package ABC too" mentality going on.

Post by Christopher Faylor
That's a viable theory. This could well be. However, it doesn't explain
an increase in this behavior unless cygwin has just become more popular
and the 1% of people who decide not to use setup.exe have just become
1% of a larger number.

Quite likely.

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by andrew clarke
Then there are the numerous issues with the UI of the Setup program
itself which no doubt dissuade people from using it.

I suppose so, but, again, it seems like many people *recently* are unaware
of the setup program entirely.

So what are these people using to extract the package contents? AFAIK
WinZip doesn't support bzip2, so something tells me they must've used
Setup at least once just to install Cygwin's bzip2 package, unless they
went to a bit of effort to find a non-Cygwin bzip2 decompressor, then
open the .tar with WinZip.

WinRAR has this ability.

Post by andrew clarke
Hmm, actually, the first hit for bzip2 on Google leads to
http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/ where there is a non-Cygwin Win32 version
of bzip2 just a page down, which I find is a little ironic, but probably
little more than coincidence. :-)

Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Randall R Schulz]

Chris,

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by andrew clarke

...

If I may, speaking on behalf of some of the less-technical Cygwin users,
Obviously for simple .tar.bz2 files without any dependencies or post-
install scripts, etc, untarring would appear to users to be a harmless
thing to do.

Maybe a new naming convention might serve to deter the naive:
PackageName-versionOrDateTag.car ("Cygwin ARchive"). It would still be
a BZip2-compressed TAR file, just as Java's ".jar" files are PKZIP
files under a different name (and with some extra content structuring
conventions).

While the uninitiated will think these files are something special and
unique to Cygwin's installer, they will still be amenable to processing
using the usual tools and all the same code will continue to work as it
did before (with the possible exception of a minor change to Setup to
know what ".car" means).

I make this suggestion about 50/50 serious / tongue-in-cheek.

Post by Christopher Faylor
If you are a nontechnical cygwin user, then why would you be making
any determination of what is harmless or not harmless? I would think
that it would be the reverse -- people who really know what they're
doing (or think they know what they're doing) would be untarring.

Post by andrew clarke
I suspect people aren't reading the notes near the bottom of
http://www.cygwin.com/download.html, or if they are, they don't believe
what they read, notably the "Installing Cygwin using this method [untar]
is not recommended." bit, because there's no explanation as to why
it's not recommended.

...
cgf

Randall Schulz

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Randall R Schulz
Chris,

Post by andrew clarke

...

If I may, speaking on behalf of some of the less-technical Cygwin users,
Obviously for simple .tar.bz2 files without any dependencies or post-
install scripts, etc, untarring would appear to users to be a harmless
thing to do.

PackageName-versionOrDateTag.car ("Cygwin ARchive"). It would still be
a BZip2-compressed TAR file, just as Java's ".jar" files are PKZIP
files under a different name (and with some extra content structuring
conventions).

You know, I almost mentioned that but I think that someone (Robert
Collins maybe?) may have suggested this previously and I adamantly
intoned that these were ".tar.bz2 files dammit".

However, changing the extension would go some way towards alleviating
this problem and it would open the door to creating different package
formats, identifiable by magic number.

I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

cgf

[Robert Collins]

Post by Christopher Faylor
You know, I almost mentioned that but I think that someone (Robert
Collins maybe?) may have suggested this previously and I adamantly
intoned that these were ".tar.bz2 files dammit".

We had a long thread on cygwin-apps about this ~ 18 months back. It's
the work of minutes to allow setup to install .cyg files - the encoding
(gzip or bzip2) will be autodetected. I'm happy to ensure that this is
in the next release.

Post by Christopher Faylor
However, changing the extension would go some way towards alleviating
this problem and it would open the door to creating different package
formats, identifiable by magic number.

We already have that (magic number support in setup). There was a
contributed patch that we discussed the architecture of on cygwin-apps,
eventually I wrote a similar thing using that patch for inspiration /
information.

Post by Christopher Faylor
I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

probably create c:/cygwin/dev/tty...

Rob

[Igor Pechtchanski]

[snip]

Post by Christopher Faylor
I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

probably create c:/cygwin/dev/tty...
Rob

FYI:
$ tar tvf test.tar
drwxrwxrwx SYSTEM/SYSTEM 0 2003-02-14 17:48:16 dev/
-rw-rw-rw- SYSTEM/SYSTEM 27 2003-02-14 17:48:16 dev/tty
$ tar xOf test.tar dev/tty
Hey! What are YOU DOING???
$ cat test.tar | (cd / && tar xvf -)
dev/
dev/tty
Hey! What are YOU DOING???
tar: dev/tty: Cannot utime: No such file or directory
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
$

As for creating c:\cygwin\dev\tty, I do that anyway - allows
Tab-completion.
Igor

[Robert Collins]

[snip]

Post by Christopher Faylor
I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

probably create c:/cygwin/dev/tty...
Rob

I meant, thats what setup.exe will do.

Rob

[Igor Pechtchanski]

Post by Robert Collins

[snip]

Post by Christopher Faylor
I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

probably create c:/cygwin/dev/tty...
Rob

I meant, thats what setup.exe will do.
Rob

Yeah, I understood that. I was kind of trying to reply to both comments
at once in a hurry, and now see that it could be interpreted this way.
My answer to your comment was that it's ok to create that file because it
allows Tab-completion (in fact, I have most of the devices as actual files
in c:\cygwin\dev). The rest of the reply was for Chris. Sorry for the
confusion.
Igor

[Rick Rankin]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Randall R Schulz
Chris,

Post by andrew clarke

...

If I may, speaking on behalf of some of the less-technical Cygwin users,
Obviously for simple .tar.bz2 files without any dependencies or post-
install scripts, etc, untarring would appear to users to be a harmless
thing to do.

PackageName-versionOrDateTag.car ("Cygwin ARchive"). It would still be
a BZip2-compressed TAR file, just as Java's ".jar" files are PKZIP
files under a different name (and with some extra content structuring
conventions).

You know, I almost mentioned that but I think that someone (Robert
Collins maybe?) may have suggested this previously and I adamantly
intoned that these were ".tar.bz2 files dammit".
However, changing the extension would go some way towards alleviating
this problem and it would open the door to creating different package
formats, identifiable by magic number.
I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

I think I'm confused. If you do this, then every time we run tar we'd see "Hey!
What are YOU DOING???" unless we removed /dev/tty? If so, it seems to me like
that would be annoying and it would be a pain to have remember to go remove
/dev/tty after every time we run setup to *avoid* that message.

--Rick

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Rick Rankin

Post by Christopher Faylor
I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

I think I'm confused. If you do this, then every time we run tar we'd see "Hey!
What are YOU DOING???" unless we removed /dev/tty? If so, it seems to me like
that would be annoying and it would be a pain to have remember to go remove
/dev/tty after every time we run setup to *avoid* that message.

Um, no. You'd get the message every time you extracted one of cygwin's package
files using normal tar. If you read what I wrote again, you'll see that I was
talking about changing the archive as in the tar file, not tar itself.

Actually, just creating a file named 'con' would probably be easier.

cgf

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by Christopher Faylor
Actually, just creating a file named 'con' would probably be easier.

Isn't 'con' a reserved name in windows? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able
to extract it from the tar archive.


Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor
Actually, just creating a file named 'con' would probably be easier.

Isn't 'con' a reserved name in windows?

That's kinda the whole point.

Post by Elfyn McBratney
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to extract it from the tar
archive.

It works just as I would expect, and just like /dev/tty works, which
is no surprise. The drawback is that it won't do anything if you're
running from rxvt or X-Windows, though.

cgf

[Elfyn McBratney]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor
Actually, just creating a file named 'con' would probably be easier.

Isn't 'con' a reserved name in windows?

That's kinda the whole point.

Right...I get it now.

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to extract it from the tar
archive.

It works just as I would expect, and just like /dev/tty works, which
is no surprise. The drawback is that it won't do anything if you're
running from rxvt or X-Windows, though.

If there's a chance that this would still go un-noticed then can we go with
the package-version.cyg/car packaging scheme? Most user's IMO would just
think that we've started our own rpm thing and would be "forced" to use
setup.exe as they would have done usually or not. That's what it's there for
afterall.

Post by Christopher Faylor
cgf

Regards,

Elfyn McBratney
***@exposure.org.uk
www.exposure.org.uk

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney

Post by Christopher Faylor
Actually, just creating a file named 'con' would probably be easier.

Isn't 'con' a reserved name in windows?

That's kinda the whole point.

Right...I get it now.

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Elfyn McBratney
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to extract it from the tar
archive.

It works just as I would expect, and just like /dev/tty works, which
is no surprise. The drawback is that it won't do anything if you're
running from rxvt or X-Windows, though.

If there's a chance that this would still go un-noticed then can we go with
the package-version.cyg/car packaging scheme? Most user's IMO would just
think that we've started our own rpm thing and would be "forced" to use
setup.exe as they would have done usually or not. That's what it's there for
afterall.

I have no problem with changing the extension. Once the option is available
I'll do a wholesale rename of the package repository and update upset so
that it knows how to find these types of files.

cgf

[Rick Rankin]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Rick Rankin

Post by Christopher Faylor
I was also thinking of creating a '/dev/tty' file in the archive which
was just a real file containing the words "Hey! What are YOU DOING???" I
think that would cause a tar extraction to print that message to the
screen. Don't know what it would do to setup.exe, though.

I think I'm confused. If you do this, then every time we run tar we'd see

"Hey!

Post by Rick Rankin
What are YOU DOING???" unless we removed /dev/tty? If so, it seems to me

like

Post by Rick Rankin
that would be annoying and it would be a pain to have remember to go remove
/dev/tty after every time we run setup to *avoid* that message.

Um, no. You'd get the message every time you extracted one of cygwin's package
files using normal tar. If you read what I wrote again, you'll see that I was
talking about changing the archive as in the tar file, not tar itself.
Actually, just creating a file named 'con' would probably be easier.

OK. I see it now. One of these days I'll learn to read.

--Rick

[David Starks-Browning]

Post by andrew clarke
...
Section 2 of the FAQ might also put people off using Setup because it's
described as a "work-in-progress" and seemingly a bit of a moving target.

I'll see if I can make this sound less off-putting.

But I also agree with Chris, that the people who read the FAQ are not
the people messing up their installations by not using setup.

Regards,
David

[David Starks-Browning]

Post by David Starks-Browning

Post by andrew clarke
...
Section 2 of the FAQ might also put people off using Setup because it's
described as a "work-in-progress" and seemingly a bit of a moving target.

I'll see if I can make this sound less off-putting.

This should be a bit better now.

David

[Rolf Campbell]

Well, I maintain an internal mirror for my company, and I use a custom
python script to parse our custom setup.ini and fetch the needed packages.
But, I never used sources.redhat.com.

Post by Christopher Faylor
I tried an experiment recently where I turned on ftp access to the
cygwin download directory on sources.redhat.com. The result seemed
to be that people started downloading cygwin's package .tar.bz2 files
directly and (somehow) used tar to extract files rather than running
setup.exe.
So, that experiment was a bad idea. I turned off access again. Yet, I
still have the feeling that many people are downloading packages
directly (from mirrors I suppose) and then we get to experience the
maddening "I downloaded foo and it gives me an error about missing bar.
What in the world could possibly be the problem????"
Can anyone offer any explanation about this? Or maybe convince me that
I'm wrong in noticing this trend? I suppose that it is possible that
we are now hitting a newer stupider brand of user who just can't be
bothered to read the cygwin web site and click on a link to download
but I'm wondering if there is another explanation. Maybe there is
a popular web page out there with wrong advice or something...
cgf
--
Please use the resources at cygwin.com rather than sending personal email.
and be permanently blocked from mailing lists at sources.redhat.com

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Rolf Campbell
Well, I maintain an internal mirror for my company, and I use a custom
python script to parse our custom setup.ini and fetch the needed packages.
But, I never used sources.redhat.com.

So, translation: "I have no insight into the problem but I thought I'd
send email anyway."

cgf

[Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)]

Post by Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc.)

Post by Rolf Campbell
Well, I maintain an internal mirror for my company, and I use a custom
python script to parse our custom setup.ini and fetch the needed

packages.

Post by Rolf Campbell
But, I never used sources.redhat.com.

So, translation: "I have no insight into the problem but I thought I'd
send email anyway."
cgf

Sorry Christopher, but did you really READ what he said: AFAICT it is
something like:
I've got LOADS OF COMPUTERS(or some such) that I wish to have fully updated
CYGWIN installations on; this is what I've decided to do as I feel it is
sane.

Take a bunch of the above, running setup.exe on their own, and all of the
mirrors will have a huge network load when a number of updates appear.

Here comes more of "I have no insight" to rant on; just shoot (I wouldn't be
too surprised as I haven't read much of the FAQ's and README's):

Seems to me as there is more interest in cygwin than you expected.
setup.exe COULD have some shortcomings here: e.g. the possibility to have a
company-local "mini-mirror" that (updated by some kind of scripting) can be
used by local machines as source for updating the installed cygwin copies.
NOTE: "scripting" implies AUTOMATIC, e.g. with *no* user intervention at
all.

e.g:

To have the thing below work AUTOMATICALLLY, with minimal user
intervention:

[cygwin mirror] --Internet--> [local mirror] --LAN--> [any # of cygwin
installs]


Another side of all this:

Users tend to not read more than necessary. I've been there myself. Also
taking note of how my friends and work mates act at these occasions.
The larger the amount of descriptive text you have the larger the amount of
FAQ's generated. In other words: I believe there is some kind of quadratic
(y=x^2) relation between README quality and FAQ amount ;-) [i.e. too little
(or too much) text -> high amount of FAQ's]

May I suggest that you(the cygwin dev group) add a bullet list on
www.cygwin.com in the following style, at the very top of the page:

THE EASY WAY TO INSTALL CYGWIN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 ) download "setup.exe" (Cygwin Package Manager or whatever)
2a) run "setup.exe"
2b) decide where to put "local mirror"
(.e.g. C:\cygwin\mirror\)
2d) decide "which mirror" to get packages from
(e.g. ftp://ftp.blah.net)
2d) hit "GO"

At most FIVE items or so, I'd say.

/Hannu E K Nevalainen, Mariefred, Sweden - undergrad who shld be do'in his
hmwrk

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)

Post by Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc.)

Post by Rolf Campbell
Well, I maintain an internal mirror for my company, and I use a custom
python script to parse our custom setup.ini and fetch the needed

packages.

Post by Rolf Campbell
But, I never used sources.redhat.com.

So, translation: "I have no insight into the problem but I thought I'd
send email anyway."

Sorry Christopher, but did you really READ what he said: AFAICT it is
something like: I've got LOADS OF COMPUTERS(or some such) that I wish
to have fully updated CYGWIN installations on; this is what I've
decided to do as I feel it is sane.
Take a bunch of the above, running setup.exe on their own, and all of
the mirrors will have a huge network load when a number of updates
appear.

I was asking why there was recently a number of people installing
without setup and then complaining when things don't work. I could care
less if someone has a system that is working smoothly for them which
bypasses setup.exe. I don't CARE if experienced users have something
which works for them. That very obviously have nothing to do with what
I was talking about. Go back and read my original question rather than
jumping into the middle of a discussion.

Post by Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)
Here comes more of "I have no insight" to rant on; just shoot (I wouldn't be

Ok. I stopped reading here. Anyone who actually admits to not reading
documentation and clearly can't even comprehend the whole purpose of the
question deserves no further consideration.

cgf

[Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)]

Of Christopher Faylor
Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2003 10:36 PM
I was asking why there was recently a number of people installing
without setup and then complaining when things don't work.

And you got told about *one* reasonable cause to "install without setup" or
at least to download by other means.

I could care
less if someone has a system that is working smoothly for them which
bypasses setup.exe. I don't CARE if experienced users have something
which works for them. That very obviously have nothing to do with what
I was talking about.

Sorry, I have to disagree... that was my main comment.

Go back and read my original question rather than
jumping into the middle of a discussion.

Is this a flame war? Not MY intention.

Likewise I don't care much bout your ranting of beeing off topic and
missing the point. Apart from the sentence above: Another of _MY_ points in
this is discussion is the TONE of your writing. (Anybody got a good link for
plain netiquette?)

I do prefer a lower tone, and an open mind.
Even things beeing a bit at the side of a discussion might bring it forth.
To just shove people away without consideration is plain rude - and causes
nothing but harm.

Post by Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)
Here comes more of "I have no insight" to rant on; just shoot (I

wouldn't be
Ok. I stopped reading here. Anyone who actually admits to not reading
documentation and clearly can't even comprehend the whole purpose of the
question deserves no further consideration.

So!? IMO you prooved my point once again.
The result of all this? IMHO plain counterproductive.

The remainder of the text contains my two cents worth of words...
If *YOU* don't get a flash of genius from it, that's fine with me.

As there are others than you reading the comments on your postings, you
do not have to take them as *personal* insults.

Just ponder a bit on this: What you can't see the point of might be the
match for somebody else's thoughts; making him/her appear here with more
insightful
comments or suggestions.

... one (wo)man's opinion isn't everybody's (is that a saying?)

Now, why don't you take a deep breath and _relax_.
That's what I'm gonna do - no use in continuing this.

/Hannu E K Nevalainen, Mariefred, Sweden - B.sc. EE/u systems - RSN

--
A side-note: In all this there might one more source of antagonism:
- I am NOT that fluent in English.
- I don't spell correctly at times.
- The order or choice of words might be wrong - giving a NOT INTENDED
impression.
i.e: Swedish has less "strict" rules in word order when compared to
English.
- Other languages have other dissimilarities; thus creating potential
misunderstandings.

The same applies on my reading...

And more: I'm sure there are OTHER PEOPLE out there that has meningful
things to say, but even lesser skill in English.
Harsh wording might cause them to not share thoughts with us.

(A thought: I'm sure any book company editor can tell you about the amount
of crap
they read before they find something useful)

[Christopher Faylor]

Post by Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)

Of Christopher Faylor
Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2003 10:36 PM
I was asking why there was recently a number of people installing
without setup and then complaining when things don't work.

And you got told about *one* reasonable cause to "install without setup" or
at least to download by other means.

Installation by people who know what they are doing and quietly go about
their business was not what I was referring to. Again, if someone has
a system that works for them and never shows up here with plaintive questions
about why they get cygintl-2.dll errors, then more power to them.

If you want to start a separate thread discussing the issue of smart
people using something besides setup, feel free. Just don't reply
directly to my message and act as if you are replying to a point I made
when I didn't make it.

Post by Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)

I could care less if someone has a system that is working smoothly for
them which bypasses setup.exe. I don't CARE if experienced users have
something which works for them. That very obviously have nothing to do
with what I was talking about.

Sorry, I have to disagree... that was my main comment.

You're disagreeing with me on what I know I'm talking about in a thread
that I started? How strange.

cgf

[Robb, Sam]

Post by Christopher Faylor

Post by Robert Collins
After the install completes..
"Your cygwin install is now ready to use. Please run setup.exe again
if you want to Install new packages, Remove installed packages, or
Update your install with the latest versions of your installed
packages."

I like it. Apparently it is extremely confusing to many
people that running
"setup.exe" again is how you update your system, Microsoft
conventions not withstanding.

You might consider adding a Start menu item for "Cygwin Update"
as part of the regular Cygwin menu entries. That's something
I do on systems I maintain, just so I have an easy way to start
setup.exe.

-Samrobb

[Dieter Meinert]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hi all,

I was going through all this thread wondering if noone
would see the (to me as a late Un*x guy) obvious:

Consider a slooooooooooooooooooooow net connection, e.g by
14.4 K Modem, or as Hannu does,
several hosts to be updated. The natural thing to me
appears to download the tar file, unpack
it somewhere, probably on a CD, and then run setup on your
target machine.
This would account for a load on the tar files while setup
isn't really triggered on the mirrors.

In this context I'd consider it a bad, at least confusing,
idea to rename the tar.bz2 files to something else.

Regards
Dieter



|=> -----Original Message-----
|=> From: Hannu E K Nevalainen (garbage mail)
|=> [mailto:***@telia.com]
|=> Sent: Sunday, February 16, 2003 5:06 PM
|=> To: ***@cygwin.com
|=> Subject: RE: Why the rash of people bypassing setup.exe
|to install? =>
|=>
|=> > On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 05:31:05PM -0500, Rolf
|Campbell wrote: => > >Well, I maintain an internal mirror
|for my company, and => I use a custom
|=> > >python script to parse our custom setup.ini and
|fetch the needed => > packages.
|=> > >But, I never used sources.redhat.com.
|=> >
|=> > So, translation: "I have no insight into the problem
|but => I thought I'd
|=> > send email anyway."
|=> >
|=> > cgf
|=>
|=> Sorry Christopher, but did you really READ what he
|said: => AFAICT it is
|=> something like:
|=> I've got LOADS OF COMPUTERS(or some such) that I wish
|to => have fully updated
|=> CYGWIN installations on; this is what I've decided to
|do as => I feel it is
|=> sane.
|=>
|=> Take a bunch of the above, running setup.exe on their
|own, => and all of the
|=> mirrors will have a huge network load when a number of
|=> updates appear.
|=>
|=> Here comes more of "I have no insight" to rant on; just
| => shoot (I wouldn't be
|=> too surprised as I haven't read much of the FAQ's and
|README's): =>
|=> Seems to me as there is more interest in cygwin than
|you expected. => setup.exe COULD have some shortcomings
|here: e.g. the
|=> possibility to have a
|=> company-local "mini-mirror" that (updated by some kind
|of => scripting) can be
|=> used by local machines as source for updating the
|installed => cygwin copies.
|=> NOTE: "scripting" implies AUTOMATIC, e.g. with *no*
|user => intervention at
|=> all.
|=>
|=> e.g:
|=>
|=> To have the thing below work AUTOMATICALLLY, with
|minimal user => intervention:
|=>
|=> [cygwin mirror] --Internet--> [local mirror] --LAN-->
|[any => # of cygwin
|=> installs]
|=>
|=>
|=> Another side of all this:
|=>
|=> Users tend to not read more than necessary. I've been
|=> there myself. Also
|=> taking note of how my friends and work mates act at
|these occasions. => The larger the amount of descriptive
|text you have the => larger the amount of
|=> FAQ's generated. In other words: I believe there is
|some => kind of quadratic
|=> (y=x^2) relation between README quality and FAQ amount
|;-) => [i.e. too little
|=> (or too much) text -> high amount of FAQ's]
|=>
|=> May I suggest that you(the cygwin dev group) add a
|bullet list on => www.cygwin.com in the following style,
|at the very top of the page: =>
|=> THE EASY WAY TO INSTALL CYGWIN
|=> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|=> 1 ) download "setup.exe" (Cygwin Package
|=> Manager or whatever)
|=> 2a) run "setup.exe"
|=> 2b) decide where to put "local mirror"
|=> (.e.g. C:\cygwin\mirror\)
|=> 2d) decide "which mirror" to get packages from
|=> (e.g. ftp://ftp.blah.net)
|=> 2d) hit "GO"
|=>
|=> At most FIVE items or so, I'd say.
|=>
|=> /Hannu E K Nevalainen, Mariefred, Sweden - undergrad
|who => shld be do'in his
|=> hmwrk
|=>
|=>
|=> --
|=> 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/
|=>
|=>

[Max Bowsher]

Post by Dieter Meinert
I was going through all this thread wondering if noone
Consider a slooooooooooooooooooooow net connection, e.g by
14.4 K Modem, or as Hannu does,
several hosts to be updated. The natural thing to me
appears to download the tar file, unpack
it somewhere, probably on a CD, and then run setup on your
target machine.

What are you talking about? You do *not* unpack the downloaded tar files
manually. EVER. You use setup.exe. Why do you think that is a good idea?

Post by Dieter Meinert
This would account for a load on the tar files while setup
isn't really triggered on the mirrors.

I think you are confused. Setup is an .exe that is run locally. The phrase
"setup isn't triggered on the mirrors" is meaningless.

Post by Dieter Meinert
In this context I'd consider it a bad, at least confusing,
idea to rename the tar.bz2 files to something else.

It seems to me that you are confused, and if the files had been renamed, you
wouldn't be.


Max.

[Steve Fairbairn]

I can't really offer much comment on this, as I do still use setup.exe to
actually install the packages. But one thing I have noticed recently, and
I'm sure someone reported it as a bug, is that setup regularly fails to
download all packages successfully. Once download is completed and we move
on to installing from local directory (I always do the process in 2 steps
due to maintaining a local copy of cygwin install set for my workplace),
then setup comes up with a few errors along the lines of 'Cannot locate
(NULL) package' (purely from memory, can't duplicate it without trying to
download the whole lot again).

My current solution is to use that wonderful wget script someone handily
provided to get the packages to a local directory, and then use setup to
install from there.

Could it be that people have encountered the same/a similar error, and
chosen to attempt a totally manual installation?

HTH,

Steve.

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[Dieter Meinert]

|=> -----Original Message-----
|=> From: Max Bowsher [mailto:***@ukf.net]
|=> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 7:01 PM
|=> To: Dieter Meinert; ***@cygwin.com
|=> Subject: Re: Why the rash of people bypassing setup.exe to install?
|=>
|=>
|=> Dieter Meinert wrote:
|=> > I was going through all this thread wondering if noone
|=> > would see the (to me as a late Un*x guy) obvious:
|=> >
|=> > Consider a slooooooooooooooooooooow net connection, e.g by
|=> > 14.4 K Modem, or as Hannu does,
|=> > several hosts to be updated. The natural thing to me
|=> > appears to download the tar file, unpack
|=> > it somewhere, probably on a CD, and then run setup on your
|=> > target machine.
|=>
|=> What are you talking about? You do *not* unpack the
|=> downloaded tar files
I did, well, almost.
|=> manually. EVER. You use setup.exe. Why do you think that is
|=> a good idea?

Because I installed cygwin just that way:
I have no internet connection on my PC, so I borrowed a CD someone burned from the tarball.
I put it into my CD drive, and copied setup.exe from CD to hard disk.
Then I ran setup.exe and gave it the path of my CDrom as source path.
Since then cygwin (1.3.10) runs well on my PC. Well, maybe something changed in setup since
that version, I don't mind as long as this works for me.

|=>
|=> > This would account for a load on the tar files while setup
|=> > isn't really triggered on the mirrors.
|=>
|=> I think you are confused. Setup is an .exe that is run
|=> locally. The phrase
|=> "setup isn't triggered on the mirrors" is meaningless.

Well, I didn't dive into this setup specifically, but there are ways of installation via
internet that connect to the server each time they need a new package. That is what I meant by
that phrase.
The way I see asetup routine that just updates some packages working is either downloading the
complete distributrion but only unpacking the required parts or by downloading each required part individually (both requiring a quite reliable network connection).

|=>
|=> > In this context I'd consider it a bad, at least confusing,
|=> > idea to rename the tar.bz2 files to something else.
|=>
|=> It seems to me that you are confused, and if the files had
|=> been renamed, you

Maybe you're right in this case, if the fellow who burned the CD had realized
that the cygwin*cpm or so file was really a tar.bz2, but that knowledge would
compromize your point in renaming.

BTW when looking for a software package to install under unix I ALWAYS search
for a tarball !

|=> wouldn't be.
|=>
|=>
|=> Max.
|=>
|=>

I hope I didn't confuse you too much.

Regards,
Dieter

[Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc.)]

Post by Dieter Meinert
|=> -----Original Message-----
|=> Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 7:01 PM
|=> Subject: Re: Why the rash of people bypassing setup.exe to install?
|=>
|=>
|=> > I was going through all this thread wondering if noone
|=> >
|=> > Consider a slooooooooooooooooooooow net connection, e.g by
|=> > 14.4 K Modem, or as Hannu does,
|=> > several hosts to be updated. The natural thing to me
|=> > appears to download the tar file, unpack
|=> > it somewhere, probably on a CD, and then run setup on your
|=> > target machine.
|=>
|=> What are you talking about? You do *not* unpack the
|=> downloaded tar files
I did, well, almost.
|=> manually. EVER. You use setup.exe. Why do you think that is
|=> a good idea?
I have no internet connection on my PC, so I borrowed a CD someone burned from the tarball.
I put it into my CD drive, and copied setup.exe from CD to hard disk.
Then I ran setup.exe and gave it the path of my CDrom as source path.
Since then cygwin (1.3.10) runs well on my PC. Well, maybe something changed in setup since
that version, I don't mind as long as this works for me.

Ugh! You are confused! You admit to using setup to install. This is
the recommended approach so I don't see how what you're suggesting is
any different than using one of the supported ways of installing with
setup. It is not, nor has it ever been, a requirement that you be
connected to the internet to install via setup. If you have already
downloaded the packages locally, you can install any of those packages
via setup without any internet connection. This is apparently what you
did. Your comment about "download a tar file, unpack it somewhere"
implies something else though and can't be reconciled with Cygwin
packages, their format, and how they are installed via setup.

For the record, it is *possible* to install a Cygwin package without
setup. There's no magic here. However, it is *not* recommended for
anyone that doesn't know about Cygwin packages and how they are made.
They are *not* just tar files. They are bzipped tar files. Not just
any tool that might know how to process bzipped tar files will understand
the Cygwin mount table or be able to create symbolic links. No tool that
understands the file format will run the post installation scripts for
a package. Setup does all this. This is why we recommend using it.
Clearly you did so it appears you are confused about the topic of
this discussion, which is no crime. But let's end this line of
discussion here since it really doesn't contribute anything to the
topic at hand.

TIA,

[Joshua Daniel Franklin]

No, it should do it automatically.

Hey!
thanks a lot!
i got it all (i think!)
just one last question.
i need to do everytime that install
a new package?
thanks you so much!
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: info is not loading...

Post by Joshua Daniel Franklin

Post by Eduardo Osorio Armenta
I have some troubles with
info
a lot of packages show their information
but not the all
that i have under
/usr/info
for example binutils.info

Eduardo,
This happens because some misbehaved packages overwrite the
"dir" file (for cygwin, /usr/info/dir) with their own. This has
come up several times and so there is now a update-info-dir
package that should take care of this. See if
ls /etc/postinstall/update-info-dir.sh*
reports that the file is there and if it has a ".done" extension.
sh /etc/postinstall/update-info-dir.sh
info -f /usr/info/binutils.info
or
pinfo -f /usr/info/binutils.info

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