Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

Christopher Faylor cgf-no-personal-reply-please@cygwin.com
Thu Oct 13 05:05:00 GMT 2005


On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 10:05:27PM -0500, Rob Hatcherson wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>I'll reiterate that the mirrors list is checked twice a day for
>>accuracy so the only way that a mirror could be out-of-date is if you
>>don't specify it from the list of mirrors but, instead, use one that
>>isn't in the list.
>>
>>Maybe setup.exe could check to see if the mirror that users specify is
>>in the list of mirrors and issue an error if it isn't.  That might cut
>>down on people reporting "bad mirrors".
>
>It would seem useful to figure out what is causing people to believe a
>mirror is out of whack.

It's not a mystery.  Presumably it's because some chose a mirror last
week and is still trying to use it today.  The mirror is no longer in
the mirrors list because it is not up-to-date but, since it has been
saved, and since they have told setup.exe to use it by default,
setup.exe goes ahead and uses it anyway.

That's why I mentioned checking to see if it's in the mirrors list.

I guess I should point out that the mirrors list is not even like a
broken watch in that it can't be guaranteed to be accurate twice a day
due to some obvious race conditions that can exist when a package is
updated.  And, there is an algorithm in the mirror checking that tries
not to drop a mirror from the list unless it fails twice in a row.
However, the mirrors list shouldn't contain mirrors that are more than
24 hours out of date, at least.

>I know I've never attempted to install cygwin from anywhere but the
>mirrors offered by the setup app, and I commonly encounter both of the
>following messages before downloads even start:
>
>- This setup.ini is older than the one you used last time you installed
>cygwin.  Proceed anyway?  This suggests that the mirror is out of date.

How could it suggest that?  That would suggest that the mirror is going
backwards in time.  Otherwise you'd get exactly the same date.

>- Unable to get setup.ini from <pick your mirror URL>
>This suggests the mirror is incomplete (i.e. who knows what else is 
>missing).

The suggests that you are having network problems connecting to a mirror
and should try another mirror.  The fact that sourceware.org can connect
to a mirror system doesn't mean that you can.  Isn't that sort of obvious?
Or are you omitting some details here?

>I suspect other setup-related problems I've encountered were a 
>side-effect of the now-abandonded "install it all at once" approach, so 
>I'd have to work at coming up with concrete examples of things that 
>ended up missing or nonfunctional via the advocated two-stage install.  
>Anyone?

The 'now-abandoned "install it all at once"' problem was unabandoned two
setup releases ago (I believe), recent advice notwithstanding.  Maybe
the setup developers will correct me if I'm wrong but AFAIK, there is no
longer any reason to split a cygwin install into two.

cgf

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