[FAQ?] Re: [Mingw-users] Cygwin Full download in one big archive ?

[Charles Wilson]

Robert Collins wrote:
> 
> I'm not about to actively maintain two forms of setup that are so
> different. And until someone offers to do that, I think it is a
> reasonable assumption to make that the install form you start with you
> continue with.

Errmm...I musta missed something.  I wasn't suggesting you do any such 
thing.

> Also, I supported having a 'install-in-one-hit-everything' in setup
> earlier in my email, where you did not quote.

Right, it wasn't germane to the "how the heck can I **download** 
everything" problem.  Setup, as we all know, is NOT a generic mirroring 
tool.

> Now, for grabbing everything at once, there are many ways:
> wget ~= setup ~= winwget ~= ftp mget ~= tool foo
> and they are *all* orthogonal to the monolithic download discussion.

Sortof.  I assumed <i>a priori</i> that a 557MB tarball is a bad idea. 
It was discussed in one of the two messages I posted a link to.  IIRC 
this whole thread started because somebody wanted to download the whole 
cygwin schlmeil in order to *inspect* the binaries or sources; not to 
install it.  And he didn't relish an afternoon's worth of point-n-click.

> I'm trying to highlight the weakness's with a monolithic download, not
> the pros and cons of a full-install strategy.

I thought "installation" wasn't the issue ANYWAY.  It was just 
*downloading*.  It's a given that we are NOT going to make 600MB 
tarballs, or daily-updated .iso's.  So, how to solve the original 
poster's problem (and address the somewhat squirrelly issue of modem users)?

I suggested using a a reasonable fascimile of a mirroring tool (e.g. 
wget, plus a GUI for the cmdline-challenged) to handle the *download*.

I didn't say (because I thought it was obvious) that IF one wanted to 
actually install cygwin -- which was NOT the case for the original 
poster who started this thread, I think -- you'd use setup.exe and point 
it at the nice local collection of files wget downloaded for you.  And 
then for updates, you'd point setup.exe back to the normal mirrors.

I was not, in any way, suggesting that setup learn how to parse a cygwin 
"installation" created by some moron unzipping a bunch of tarballs by 
hand.  No way.  Never.

--Chuck


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