setup redownloads everything all the time, including the packages list, and also has a foolish UI

[Marco Atzeri]

On 20/03/2017 12:16, Csaba Raduly wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Leif W wrote:
>> On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 16:14:09 +0100, Dave Korn  wrote:
>>>   By design, setup searches through all the download directories, keeps
>>> track of all the versions, should know exactly what you've already got and
>>> never re-download something you already have; if it ever does, it's a bug.
>>>
>>>   There is one caveat: if setup dies - actually crashes or is killed -
>>> part-way through downloading a whole series of packages, it may not have
>>> updated its catalog by the time it gets terminated, and so it might
>>> download
>>> them again.  But once setup has downloaded and exited successfully, it
>>> should know and remember what it's done and not do it again.
>>
>> Trying to compile various programs while installing the absolute minimum
>> required.  I install the compiler for the language, attempt compilation,
>> make note of failures (i.e. missing libraries, etc), and then run setup
>> again (usually 30 seconds from the previous run).
>>
>> Run setup again, install from local disk?  That does not make sense, to
>> install things which have not been downloaded.  So I choose install from
>> internet, which re-downloads everything.  It is not clear from the user
>> interface or from the options or from the FAQ, exactly what the behavior is
>> intended to be.
>>
>> Setup re-downloads the entire 2MB packages file every single time.
>
> It has to do this; the packages file might have changed since the previous run.

Technically it could be changed to download first the setup.bz2.sig
and if it is not changed reuse the previous setup.bz2

However dear Leif
	"SHTDI 	Somebody Has To Do Itâ„¢. Are you volunteering?"
https://cygwin.com/acronyms/#SHTDI

>> Ignoring
>> for a moment the great difficulty of use of the poorly designed Setup GUI,
>> it appears to remember to "keep" what I already have.  But then it proceeds
>> to re-download everything I already have, in addition to whatever new things
>> I have selected.
>
> This has never happened to me, and I used setup.exe daily for six
> years in the past.
>
> (snip)
>> In other cases, the poorly designed GUI has such insane usability issues,
>> and often does crash.
>
> This has never happened to me.

Same for me, no crash ever.

> (snip)
>> This app would have been ahead of it's time, if it was invented in the
>> 1980s, but was barely acceptable back in the 1990s.  20+ years have passed,
>> and there has been zero progress in the installation process, design,
>> usability or robustness.

Feel free to propose patch to improve the installer
https://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PTC

Regards
Marco

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