This is the mail archive of the cygwin 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: "mbox note: Can't open file://L:\ods\rtoy\Cygnus/ for reading: Unrecognisable file format" errors whilst executing setup.exe


On 1/28/2010 3:19 PM, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 02:54:30PM -0600, Jeremy Bopp wrote:
>> On 1/28/2010 2:15 PM, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 02:02:44PM -0600, Jeremy Bopp wrote:
>>>> On 1/28/2010 12:20 PM, Heath Kehoe wrote:
>>>>> Anyway, for now I'm going to just comment out the call to note() at
>>>>> install.cc:295 so that my users can do installations without having to
>>>>> dismiss that popup 52 times.
>>>>
>>>> Rather than build your own copy of setup.exe while you wait for this
>>>> defect to be fixed, why not use the --packages option for setup.exe to
>>>> select the set of packages you know you need from the command line?  If
>>>> your users would have difficulty with that, you could write a simple
>>>> batch file to wrap the setup.exe invocation.
>>>
>>> OTOH, modifying source code and rolling your own copy is precisely why
>>> Free Software project exists in the first place.  IMO, this is a great
>>> way of dealing with this kind of situation.  I wish more people were
>>> willing to look at source code.
>>
>> True enough, and hopefully Heath will send along the patches to fix the
>> problem.  It just seems in this case that distributing a locally built
>> setup.exe is a bit like hammering a finishing nail with a sledge hammer.
>> Yeah, it works, but it takes far more effort than required to do the
>> job. :-)
> 
> The alternative being to notify a presumably large user base of unknown
> technical competency about a change in procedure?  Telling someone to
> "just use this binary" seems a lot simpler to me.

Depending on your users, the hard part is getting them to STOP using the
binary you give them once it is obsolete.  This becomes more difficult
the longer they see you as the supplier rather than cygwin.com,
especially if they are less technically proficient.

The other thing being addressed in Heath's situation is the installation
of all packages for all users every time.  Installing everything does
ensure that all necessary packages are installed in a way that is easy
to follow, but it takes more time and disk space than required for most
people.  If there is a concern that someone may forget to install
package foo or select the correct setup options, why not use the cool,
new command line options available in setup.exe via a simple batch file
and run a silent install?

There is definitely a trade off either way you go.  I only made my
original suggestion in order to present an alternative solution which
may or may not work better for Heath and others reading this thread.
Unfortunately, I seem to have taken the thread too far off topic now, so
I'll leave it and allow the defect in setup.exe to be addressed.

-Jeremy

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple


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