Re: Reducing configuration headaches for cygwin-xfree

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please at cygwin dot com>]

On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 02:51:01PM +0100, Alexander Gottwald wrote:
>>- cygwin1.dll side-by-side install issue solved, i.e.  it should be
>>possible to have a stable version of this X server installed next to a
>>bleeding edge CygWin.
>
>This is an issue that must be solved by the cygwin folks and it is
>unlikely that is ever will.  the shared memory sections are required
>for interprocess communication.  if there are two different
>cygwin1.dlls floating around (even renamed and the shared memory
>separated) it will break the xserver integration into the cygwin layer.

Yes, it comes up periodically in the cygwin mailing list but it is not
something that I, or any other developer, have any interest in
exploring.

It is not impossible to run two installations at the same time, as long
as you don't expect communication between the two.  However, this is
a wonderfully self-selecting type of activity.  If you know what you're
doing, it's not that hard to set up and use.  If you don't know what
you're doing and things like DLLs, shared memory, and source code are
a mystery then you're probably not going to be able to set things up.

That is how it should be.  I really don't want to be debugging problems
from people who have multiple cygwins on their systems but don't really
understand the problems inherent in doing that.  The mantra is that
newer versions of cygwin always work with older versions of programs so
you should only ever need one version of cygwin.

>> - The CygWin installer is a stumbling block itself. For those that
>> *only* want an X server, a gigantic self-installing .exe file  would be
>> better.
>
>Separate installers for cygwin programs is pain. Wincvs has done it. OpenSSH
>has done it. And a lot  more too. And it always leads to _huge_ problems if
>you want to use them together. Most installers also install their own 
>cygwin1.dll with different version and then the programs just bomb. 

AFAIK, you wouldn't want to install X without also installing some other
things like bash, at least.  I would think you'd want other tools like
'cp', as well.  Since people always complain that the minimal
installation for cygwin (which is the default) doesn't have enough stuff
in it, I don't really understand why the minimal installation + X would
have too much.

However, there was a brief discussion in the cygwin list of introducing
"personalities" to the cygwin setup utility to accommodate different uses.
If this is something that is useful to the Cygwin/X project then hop over
to cygwin-apps and provide a patch or at least discuss this option with
others who are interested in implementing it.

cgf