AW: SETUP WIZARD FOR CYGWIN?XFREE86

[Ralf Habacker]

> On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Ralf Habacker wrote:
>
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Mohammed Siddique [ mailto:latticeweb@home.com ]
> > > Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 2:22 AM
> > >
> > > I have created a little windows interface for Cygwin/XFree86. With
> > > this new installation wizard, all you have to do is double click on
> > > the Setup icon and the rest is interactive.
> >
> > It's nice to see this. Because currently category support of
> cygwin setup
> > isn't ready,
> > I have released kde-1.1.2 beta 1 with a setup.ini for easy
> install. So for
> > me it seems
> > currently to be the best way to add an own setup.exe for each
> bigger project
> > like kde or xfree.
>
> Allow me to rephrase this:
>
> I have installed kde-1.1.2 beta 1 with a setup.ini for easy install (The
> upgrade of the cygwin dll went well. This is not trivial!).
>
Thanks

> Currently it seems to me that the best would be for every project to add
> their own cygwin packages,

in some points I agree with you, I have added some necessary libs like
png,tiff,gif,zlib from a current cygwin distribution because for preventing
of version conflicts.
The cygwin library instead is contained only because of the next release
isn't ready yet and the current cygwin release would cause much support
requests. I don't like to support the cygwin dll as whole.

> and hopefully those packages will make it into
> the contrib (and later: into stable) as fast as possible.

Note that kde contains of about 10 tar balls and xfree as I remember more
than 30.
Add the estemmed 60 tar balls of the contrib and latest dir and place in on
simple list,
it's a nightmare to handle installation with the current installer.

Additional this concept I think will be changed, because the cygwin
installer is going to get
categories and dependencies. Look at the cygwin and cygwin-patches
mailinglist for details.
So if this effort is ready I think the several projects can come together.

> Thus the project will not have to worry about setup.exe , and will not
have to worry about
> packages.

I think setup.exe is the smallest problem. Currently it is quite easy to
install
at first basic cygwin with all package you need, next xfree and than any
x-Apps.
In the last for example kde you can choose independed from the basic
installation, if
cygwin reinstalling is needed or not.
Additional making a distribution like ke-cygwin isn't easy. There are many
dependencies
and handling with own setup makes it simplier to create. Assume that the kde
installer
is an additional window of the main installer.
Third my proposal relating the setup.exe is temporally because [3] kde isn't
integrated in the
main cygwin distribution channels.
>
> The "SETUP.EXE" concept is nice, but cygwin is too complex for a simple
> installer that is not aware of the current system and the components that
> are already installed on it.
I suppose you mean with setup.exe a normal windows setup.exe like install
shield or so ?
Because the cygwin installer is able to recognize the installation state of
the current system
and components.

How will your setup.exe handle upgrading?
Now I'm sure, you have misunderstood me, with setup I mean the normal cygwin
installer.

> (e.g.: are there certain config files that need to be saved?) removal? (I
> don't want the cyrillic fonts and the japanese documentation anymore. How
> do I remove them?)
A few weeks ago I have asked about a generic pre/postinstall/removal in the
cygwin installer.
This would handle this.
>
> So, you see, there is no point in replicating the exiting package
> instllation tool (although it can probably be improved).
This need that [3] is done, so as long as kde is distributed for his own,
this isn't right.
And second in the meantime, assume that the kde installer is an additional
window of the main
installer. Where is the problem ?

> All you need is to seperate the files that are installed by the XFree
installer into
> seperate "packages", each in its own tree, pack them as cygwin packages
> (simply tar balls of a partials trees) and create an appropriate
> setup.ini.

Think about that I have ported qt and kde-1.1.2 alone and made an
distribution and patched ld
and libtool and .... in two month, which was a heavy job, so if you get
profit from using kde,
spend some time to catch this aim.

Thats the way open source works.

Regards

Ralf

>
> --
> Tzafrir Cohen
> mailto:tzafrir@technion.ac.il
> http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir
>
>