Setup and dependencies

[<fergus at bonhard dot uklinux dot net>]

In between the two extremes of "basic" and "complete" installations of
Cygwin, setup allows the user to make their own selection from what is on
offer. As a simple example of what can happen, it is possible to select man,
and de-select groff. After installation is completed, any attempt to use man
will fail, because (as is made explicit in setup.ini) man requires groff.

I can see that with 228 packages to choose from (today) the dependence graph
becomes moderately complex: but are setup.exe and setup.ini presently
intended to supervise this aspect of a user's installation and prevent such
"illegal" selections? (In which case I think this is a failure.)

(I can also see that setup.ini offers all necessary relevant information to
the user, who might reasonably be expected to put some intelligent effort
into achieving a sufficient choice for glitch-free behaviours. But it's
precisely because this becomes so difficult so quickly, that automated
invisible supervision from setup would be so much appreciated.)

Thank you.

Fergus


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