Problem with setup.exe - C:\cygwin\bin\* isn't created

Dave kilroyd@googlemail.com
Wed May 30 12:22:00 GMT 2007


Dave Korn wrote:
> On 30 May 2007 11:08, Thorsten Kampe wrote:
>> * Jean-Pierre Bogler (Wed, 30 May 2007 07:16:42 +0200)
>>> The download process worked well an the installation began. After the
>>> installation I decided to add a desktop icon and double clicked on it.
>>> The dos box told me that it can't change the directory und can't find
>>> bash.exe :(, so I looked into the C:\cygwin directory.
>>>
>>> The only installed directories are: etc, lib, sbin, usr, var. And the
>>> files: cygwin.bat and cygwin.ico. There is no bin directory!
>>> The setup.log file is full of the complaining listed below (... means that
>>> the message above appears more than once).
>>>
>   Yes, but that's very far from an explanation of just how on earth the bin directory got installed in such an unexpected place, particularly when all the other directories ended up in the correct location.

I've seen this before. To reproduce:

1. Install cygwin to some directory, say "c:\bizarro_path".
2. Optionally uninstall cygwin.
3. Install cygwin to another directory, "c:\cygwin"

The first install set up your /bin mount to point to "c:\bizarro_path\bin".

During the second install setup.exe places almost everything in
c:\cygwin. However the contents of /bin go to the existing mount point
at "c:\bizarro_path\bin". This is necessary so cygwin updates work when
you've mounted bin somewhere non-standard.

Specifically, when this problem happens cygwin.bat tries to run bash in
c:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe which is not there.

Simple enough to fix, just clear you mounts and reinstall.
c:\bizarro_path\bin\umount -a (IIRC)

I was thinking of submitting a patch to setup to warn users of /bin
being in a non-standard location relative to the install path, but
reasoned this is:

a) not a very frequent occurence
b) usually the user trying to do something strange*


Regards,

DaveK2.

* Having multiple cygwins scattered about the place, and in some cases
running them concurrently.

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