RE: Cygwin installing too much stuff

["Gary R. Van Sickle" <g dot r dot vansickle at worldnet dot att dot net>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com 
> [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On Behalf Of Brandon J. Van Every
> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 4:32 PM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Cygwin installing too much stuff
> 
> I have a reasonably healthy Cygwin installation that I 
> typically use to build various HLL compilers.  One of these 
> compilers needed the "zip"
> tool in order to be built.   So I fired up Cygwin and clicked 
> to install
> "zip."  Well, instead of doing just that, it also started 
> installing Ruby, and TeTex, and seemingly a whole bunch of 
> other things.  I know for fact that the simple "zip" tool is 
> not dependent upon this stuff, so I am wondering why Cygwin 
> is installing it all.
> 
> It is irritating because I'm on a dialup, and I just wanted 
> to grab the small "zip" tool and keep going with my real 
> work.  Instead I'm waiting waiting waiting waiting on piles 
> of downloads that I'm too lazy to go in and figure out.
> 

Well... since you're waiting anyway, couldn't you use that otherwise-wated
time to "go in and figure [it] out"?  In this case, you lucked out, because
I'm going to do it for you!  Setup by default tries to bring any
already-installed package up/back to the "curr" version.  Not only does it
update old stuff, but if you have any "exp" releases installed, it'll
actually try to "downgrade" them back to "curr".  Yeah, that's not too cool.
If you want to avoid that (and since I often use "exp" stuff, I often do),
use this procedure, and never be surprised again:

- Select the new package(s) you want to install in the package chooser.  I
usually use the "Full" view.
- Once you're done, switch to the "Partial" view.  This will show you what
is going to be downloaded and installed.  Deselect anything you don't want
up/downgraded (i.e. swith the entry in the "New" column to "Keep") or
installed (i.e. switch it to "Skip").
- "Next" away and let setup do its work.

Make sure you don't screw things up though; if you accidentally turn off a
package's prerequistes, you're likely to have a mysteriously broken
installation.

-- 
Gary R. Van Sickle
 


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