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Re: Running fontforge.exe does nothing


David Spector wrote:

> I'm having trouble using setup.exe. It seems to want
> to download all sorts of software I'm not interested
> in by default. Example: ghostscript, which I already
> have installed under Windows.

Packages have dependencies.  When you select one package, setup adds all
the other packages that are required for proper operation of that
package.  If it selected ghostscript, it's because you've selected a
package (possibly indirectly) that is listed as requiring ghostscript. 
If you try to second guess these dependencies you end up with a broken
system where trying to run a command results in nothing happening
because of missing DLLs, which is the original problem that brought you
here in the first place.

> I can't find any way to install only the libpng12 and
> libxml2 packages without having to expand then check
> and uncheck hundreds of individual entries.

Again, if you try to second guess setup you'll just end up with a broken
system.  If it selects a package for installation that means something
indicates that it's necessary for proper operation.

> (I won't waste space including your message of June
> 24, 2008 1:40 PM, since it's in the archive. Why does
> cygwin use the mailing list approach, instead of an
> online forum? Seems awkward,

Oh, where to begin.

Email is flexible.  You can read messages using your choice of program,
from full client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Kmail) to text mode client
(emacs, mutt, pine, elm) to webmail (hotmail, gmail, etc) to mobile
phones, and so on.  With a web forum, you get precisely one UI with no
alternatives.  If I find the forum admin's choice of colors or font size
objectionable I have no choice, whereas I can configure my email client
as I wish.  I can filter/sort/organize the messages as I wish according
to arbitrarily complex rules, whereas forums give few options.  And I
cringe when thinking of having to compose messages in a crappy little
web browser form, compared to using a full fledged text editor.

Email is distributed.  When I receive the copy of an email it stays in
my client until I move or delete it.  I can instantly refer to old
messages with practically zero delay, whereas with web forums there is a
page load delay for every page, not to mention that there's not even a
possibility of using web forums offline.

Email has real threads (a tree) when used in conjunction with a real
client, not a flat list of messages.

Email is mirrored.  With web forums, the messages live in exactly one
place and are hard or impossible to mirror by third parties without
database access.  If that one site ever goes down, the content usually
dies with it.  Mailing lists are archived widely by disparate parties
and tend to live on forever regardless of whether the original host
still exists.  Examples: <http://marc.info/> and
<http://www.mail-archive.com/>.

Email is fast.  It's pure text.  There are no annoying smileys, avatars,
obnoxious flashing banner ads, stylesheets, javascript, etc.  And
mercifully on this list there is no HTML either.

Email is a push not a pull medium.  There's no refreshing of a page to
see if someone replied, you get a message delivered when it's sent.

Email is universal.  You can CC multiple lists/projects and multiple
recipients, because practically every open source project has a mailing
list.  With web forums, you are restricted to only those forums on that
particular board.  There is no choice of crossposting to other boards
and having replies work in a sensible manner; every community is its own
little walled garden.  There are countless various different and
incompatible forum scripts/software, none of which can communicate; but
email is standard.

Email tends to be treated with a more mature attitude.  For the most
part people use real names and they communicate in proper English with
complete sentences and proper grammar.  Web forums tend to attract the
"LOL OMG WTF!!!!!!!!!! :smiley:" kind of useless lamer.

Email can be easily gatewayed to other formats.  If you want to read the
mailing list like a web forum, you can:
<http://www.nabble.com/Cygwin-f12165.html>.  If you want to read it as a
newsgroup, you can: <nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.os.cygwin>.  If you
want to read it as a blog, you can:
<http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.os.cygwin>.  And so on with RSS, etc.  But
a web forum is inflexible and static, its interface is totally the mercy
of the script used and site admin.

> since we have to receive
> all messages instead of subscribing to or browsing the
> categories or threads in which we are interested.)

No, you don't.  You can simply send a message to the list and request to
be CC:d on replies.  You needn't subscribe and receive everything.

Brian

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