setup and mintty (was Re: New setup.exe release?)

Andy Koppe andy.koppe@gmail.com
Mon May 23 20:14:00 GMT 2011


On 23 May 2011 12:50, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On May 20 17:09, Yaakov (Cygwin/X) wrote:
>> The setup.exe download is still 2.738.  Could it be updated to 2.749
>> to include jturney's recent bug fixes?
>
> I'd like to fix the mintty issue first.
>
> So, do we swtch to mintty as default terminal, yes or no?
>
> If we switch to mintty we don't need the Cygwin.bat file anymore.  But,
> shouldn't we keep it anyway for people who maintain some handmade symlink
> to it?

Yes, I think so.

> If so, should we stick to the content of Cygwin.bat as is, or should
> we change it to call mintty, too?

Better not, so as not to change people's existing setup. And because
it would flash up a console for the .bat.

> And who's going to create the patches?

I suppose that should be me, but my spare time is rather limited at
the moment and I still owe a patch or two for other things.

> Last but not least, shouldn't we add mintty to the Base package
> anyway, independently of what we do to setup?

Seems sensible.

Further all this, if the change to mintty as the default is going
ahead, there's the question of what the desktop shortcut should do and
what it should be called.

What it should do:
1) Invoke the user's default shell as set in /etc/passwd as a login
shell. (This is what the mintty start menu shortcut currently does)
2) Invoke bash as a login shell.

What it should be called:
a) "mintty": Few are going to know what that is.
b) "Cygwin Bash Shell": That's the current name of course. Not
compatible with option 1 above.
c) "Cygwin Shell": Shell-neutral, but encourages the confusion between
terminal and shell.
d) "Cygwin Terminal": Linux desktops usually have "Terminal" entries
in their menus.
e) something else?

I also think the console's start menu entry in the Cygwin folder
should be kept, perhaps with a new name. "Console" vs "Terminal"?

Andy



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