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Re: setup installs packages without displaying it


"Gerrit P. Haase" wrote:

> Previously there was no nag.  I deslected some important package and
> was lost.  Now a hint is displayed, one could tell the user: "There
> are important packages missing in your selection, do you really want
> to be that stupid?  To add these packages automatically hit the box
> below."

I am not disputing that it is more of a burden for you now, or that it
makes your life harder.  I'm very sorry for that.  But that doesn't
change the fact that setup is just not designed to be used in the way
you are using it -- at least not without informing it of what you're
doing by editing installed.db -- and so you have to expect some small
amount of discomfort.

Put another way: If a given feature causes a more reliable Cygwin
experience for 95 out of 100 people, but results in a few extra seconds
of work to uncheck a box for the other 5, then clearly it is doing a lot
more good than harm.  I'm sorry that you're in the minority but we
really have to make the default behavior apply to the most common use
case.

If that check box did not default to checked, we would be back to where
we started with users managing to somehow deselect required dependant
packages, and end up with broken installs.  You could say "but they
would at least get a message saying something is wrong" but it is clear
that most users don't read dialogs, they just press OK/Next.  You proved
this yourself by glossing over the dialog despite the first word of it
being "Warning!" in bold.

In any case, it shouldn't take more than a couple of lines added to
installed.db to inform setup of your local packages, and from then on it
should work as expected, without having to uncheck anything.

Brian


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