Re: an updated howto on a portable/usb cygwin installguide?

[Fergus <fergus at bonhard dot uklinux dot net>]

> Is there an updated howto on a portable/usb cygwin installguide? 
Since 1.7
> cygwin no longer writes to the registry so I was curious if there 
were any
> changed on making a portable install and/or a end all guide on the 
process.

I run routinely off a portable stick. Installing cygwin direct to H: (or 
whatever) is straightforward but the writing can be time-consuming and 
an alternative approach is to install to HD and then move the entire 
construction to stick. Anything additional you want under /home/ or 
/usr/local/ is just copied to the stick in the usual way.

  1. In my case I use the setup command
     setup -P <comma-separated required packages>
     as a Full Install would need a very hi-capacity stick.
  2. Incidentally despite concentrated effort during installation to
     personalise location I often find a first install lands up under
     c:\cygwin, regardless of instructions otherwise. I think others
     occasionally find this too. See say
     http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2011-01/msg00088.html and
     http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2011-01/msg00091.html (but these are
     very minor isolated glitches and I have no idea how common an
     experience this is).
  3. Once installed I delete /etc/group and /etc/passwd and /etc/fstab
     for a truly portable system.
  4. Once installed, start up by double-clicking on h:/bash.cmd as
     follows (which is actually drivename independent so it doesn't
     matter whether the host machine names your stick h: or m: or ...),
     setting HOME appropriately for your username. This is my
     h:/bash.cmd, you could invent h:/mintty.cmd or even h:/xterm.cmd
     to start up in mintty or xterm respectively if you wanted to. I've
     got all 3 startup modes.
     @set SHELL=/bin/bash
     @set HOME=/home/user
     @start /wait %CD%\bin\bash
     @set HOME=
     @set SHELL=
  5. Otherwise as far as I recall ~/.bashrc, ~/.Xdefaults, ~/.inputrc
     are nothing special or different but two lines in (my) ~/.bashrc are
     PATH="$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/bin"
     /bin/mount -c "/"
     (I have been using this portable architecture for so long that
     (line 1) I can't remember where PATH is conventionally set; also
     (line 2) I prefer accessing other drives from / rather than
     /cygdrive/.)


Hope this helps.
Fergus

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