Re: SETUP WIZARD FOR CYGWIN?XFREE86

["Robert Collins" <robert dot collins at itdomain dot com dot au>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralf Habacker" <Ralf.Habacker@freenet.de>


> > Asking every user to make a large number of selections is, of course,
not
> > a good idea. But you can have a number of ready-made selection parrtens
in
> > the installer. Simply using categories is not enough here, I believe.
> >
> Thats right. If I remenber right, this was dicussed already.

On the cygwin-developers list, yes. The new setup program, that is under
testing now, supports 'task' pacakges.

> > I like the idea of debian's 'task' packages (packages that contain no
> > files, and their only job is to help the user select a group of other
> > packages through dependencies. This works well if you have a mechanism
> > fordependencies, and for dependencies resolution :-( ).

We have categories and dependencies. There's always more to do - such as the
addition of "features" (dependencies on a feature, not a package or file).

> > >
> > > Additional this concept I think will be changed, because the cygwin
> > > installer is going to get
> > > categories and dependencies. Look at the cygwin and cygwin-patches
> > > mailinglist for details.
> > > So if this effort is ready I think the several projects can come
together.
> >
> > Sorry. I don't have anything spesific in mind.

Nothing specific is needed. It's all written and working - just awaiting
final user-interface tweaking and testing.

> > Installing is only the first part. What happens when I want to upgrade?
> >
> For kde 1.1.2 this weill be nnot problem because there are no update and
Kde2
> will be an independent port. For that, I think it could be handled by the
> package
> by itself.

Also there are now, or soon will be pre-remove scripts to remove config
files etc, and there are already post-install scripts to complete
configuration settings.

> > > Third my proposal relating the setup.exe is temporally because [3] kde
isn't
> > > integrated in the main cygwin distribution channels.
> > > >
> > > > The "SETUP.EXE" concept is nice, but cygwin is too complex for a
simple
> > > > installer that is not aware of the current system and the components
that
> > > > are already installed on it.

Fortunately the cygwin setup.exe, which is aware of the current system, is
GPL, so anyone can use it as a base for cygwin-aware setup programs.

> I know and like that and have placed a corresponding proposal in the
cygwin
> mailing list.
> But creating rpm packages is not easy.

As cygwin doesn't have rpm support in the setup program, they are also not
very useful :}. That could be changed of course - if someone wants to write
code :].

> >
> > What about batch installation?

Submit a patch for cygwin's setup.exe. It's a fairly commonly asked
question, but AFAIK none of the regular setup.exe hackers have any interest
in creating such functionality, those who want it need to provide it.

> Where is the problem, you can have the source of the installer. Create a
new
> main file
> with option handling, call the available functions and it will work :-)

It's _much_ better to offer a patch back to the cygwin project, rather than
just create a separate .exe just-for-one-project. That way we all gain.

> >
> > If someone were to write a command-line front-end to the cygwin
installer?
> >
> I don't know.

No need. Create a patch to accept command line instructions as I said - you
have the source to the cygwin installer!.

Rob