This is the mail archive of the cygwin@cygwin.com mailing list for the Cygwin project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]
Other format: [Raw text]

Re: Minimum Install for Executable Distrubution


* Christopher Faylor (03-02-26 04:35 +0100)
> On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 04:11:36AM +0100, Thorsten Kampe wrote:
>> * Max Bowsher (03-02-25 20:13 +0100)
>>> Thorsten Kampe wrote:
>>>> I checked it myself and I was wrong: the default install is exactly the
>>>> base install (plus dependencies) and this is exactly the minimum
>>>> install.
>>>
>>> For certain definitions of minimum.
>>
>> Well, yes.  I believe the Cygwin people had strong reasons to put
>> something in the base (default) install, so "If you uncheck something
>> from the base packages, something certainly will fail".
> 
> Let me say it again:  You don't need to install everything in the base.
> 
>> But I'm curious (and this question is often asked). Do you think 
>> something from the base install could be omitted /and/ having a 
>> working Cygwin install?
> 
> http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2003-02/msg01982.html
> 
> OF COURSE you don't have to install everything.  You just have to
> install what you need.  A cygwin program just absolutely needs
> the DLL everything other than that is optional.  Install as much
> or as little as you want.

So you're telling me that

a) there is no particular reason why the Cygwin creators made a "Base 
Category" (different to all other categories (Editors, Shells))

b) there is no particular reason why the Cygwin creators put for 
example gawk in the "Base Category" but not vim?

Your explanation was: "you just have to install what you need" and 
"install as much or as little as you want".

Is it reasonable to assume that more people would want gawk than vim? 
No, and even if, why not let them select "gawk" on their own?!

Is it reasonable to assume that more people would /need/ to have gawk 
installed than vim? Yes, and this is the reason why gawk is in the 
default install and vim isn't.

I don't know these reasons for all those Base packages. But the 
reasons are in my opinion not trivial. Omitting tar for example hasn't 
simply the effect "so you cannot use tar" but "so you cannot install 
via setup.exe, because the installation packages are tarred (and 
bzipped)"[1]


Thorsten

[1] This is an assumption, because I don't think setup.exe has builtin 
"tar.bz2" support
-- 
 Content-Type: text/explicit; charset=ISO-8859-666 (Parental Advisory)
 Content-Transfer-Warning: message contains innuendos not suited for
 children under the age of 18


--
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/


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]