file-system layout in b20.2+ [Re: yikes, what are these?]

Phil Edwards pedwards@jaj.com
Wed Jun 30 22:10:00 GMT 1999


> /cygwin/<version>
> but then have the installer create the appropriate symbolic links or mount
> points to /usr,/bin,/etc et-al such that  /etc is actually a (mount point or
> symbolic link) to /cygwin/<version>/etc.

Why should we have to manually do what every other half-decent Unix out
there does automatically?

All you have to do is install /cygwin/<version> and let it create all its
little directories under that (without the hardcoded H-* stuff; if it had
just been *called* usr I would have understood what was happening much
earlier :-).

Then all you have to do is mount /cygwin/<version> as / and everything
else will fall in as you want:  /etc will be /cygwin/<version>/etc, and
so forth.


>  I would also like to see the
> installer automatically mount / to C:\
>
> This would provide a unix friendly envionment for compiling and installing
> things, as you mentioned above, but would leave / as C:\  which IMHO is a
> logical way of doing things.

Why?  C:\ contains nothing but project-related data on my system (and as of
yesterday, my cygwin home directory).  Why is that a logical choice?

Oh, were you looking for the system drive?  Ah, that'd be D: on my system,
C: on a coworker's system, and F: on another coworker's system.  Perhaps
you should not make the same mistake as every Win9x programmer seems to make,
and look for %WINDIR% or %SystemDrive% instead.

Still, I don't see what mapping the Winblows drive to / gets us.


> As far as changing to another version is concerned, instead of one or two
> registry entries to modify, you would need a number of them, but this could
> still be handled by a simple program, etc.

Or just unmount / and remount a different /cygwin/<version> as /.  Uh, maybe.
I'm leery of changing versions or reinstalling, because I don't want to have
to set up all the mount points all over again.

(Speaking of which, surely the idea of /etc/[vx]fstab has come up.  What was
the reason for not using it?  Or *some* kind of text file representation
of mount points?)


(If you reply to the list, please don't cc another copy to me.  Thanks!)
Phil


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