Re: what about 'Debian GNU/GygWin' ?

[michael-ring at t-online dot de (Michael Ring)]

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000 16:33:29 +0200, you wrote:

>
>hello  to all the CygWin developers.
>
>I am a regular GNU/Linux user.
>
>I have just met (and briefly used)
>the CygWin environment, and I am positively impressed.
>
>I see that CygWin has grown much lately,
>and it has now the same size as a small Linux distribution;
>this has naturally brought you to using a "packaging system":
>(I obviusly mean:
>dividing the software in packages, that may singolarly installed
>or updated). 
>
>As the number of packages increases, the  "packaging system"
>needs to become more complex (to comply to many problems
>like "dependencies" and "conflicts" between packages).
> 
>At this stage, I see an interesting perspective for CygWin:
>CygWin may indeed adhere to one of the main existing "packaging systems",
>like RedHat RPMs or Debian DEBs
>

I have created a RPM-based version of cygwin, and am currently working
on some nice install procedures that make it easy to bootstrap the
distribution from a 'naked' pc. If this problem is solved, the
rpm-dist would be ready for prime-time.

>I would suggest the latter, for these reasons
>
>1) DEBs packages are somewhat more flexibles and powerfuls than RPMs, and the
> "apt" tool (that is the user front end for installs and upgrades) 
> is very "intelligent"
>  (it is able to upgrade from Debian 1.3, which was a libc5 system, 
>   to Debian 2.2 , that is a libc6, with almost no fuss)
>
>2) Debian is already developed for 11 architectures:
> GNU/Linux  GNU/Hurd GNU/PowerPC GNU/Alpha...
> What I am proposing may be called "Debian GNU/CygWin"
>
>3) I am a (prospective) Debian mantainer :-)
>

Of course I would prefer the first alternative 8-)

There are lots of tools that help you to keep your distribution up to
date once it has been set up. 
A lot of Applications already have been rpm'ized and are waiting to
flood the net once the installation issues are settled. rpm has
already been ported to cygwin and works faily well.

How does apt work? Console? 

>4) Debian is a big distribution, with many people and many 
>  packages: if only a small part of the Debian community will
>  ever start porting packages to  "Debian GNU/CygWin";
>  this would anyway mean a lot to CygWin
>
>5) (I seem to understand that) Debian contains 
>  already some cross-arch stuff that would help the Debian mantainers
>  to build packages for  "Debian GNU/CygWin";
>  

I do not know enough of Debian, but I am currently maintaing a single
spec-file for each application at work that compile under Cygwin,
Sun-Solaris and OSF1. 

>  
>I hope to start a nice discussion with this mail;
>there are indeed a lot of points to discuss
>

Yep, in my point of view the best system for the user should make it.
RPM always seemed the 'natural choice for me because I am also using
Mandrake Linux & Redhat Linux which are both RPM-based. Perhaps you
could provide me with the buildscripts that are used in the debian
system (I mean something that is compareable/does the same job as the
.spec files for RPM.) If it is much better, why not give it a try?

>if the CygWin community will eventually 
>be interested in this  "Debian GNU/CygWin" idea,
>I am willing to propose and sponsor  "Debian GNU/CygWin"
>in the Debian community.
>
>a.m.
>
>
>-- 
>Andrea C. Mennucc1

Michael Ring

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