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RE: making a cygwin install.


On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, McGraw, Robert P. wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Igor Peshansky [mailto:pechtcha@XX.XXX.XXX]
> > Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 9:34 AM
> > To: McGraw, Robert P.
> > Cc: cygwin@XXXXXX.XXX

<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PCYMTNQREAIYR>.  Thanks.

> > Subject: Re: making a cygwin install.
> >
> > On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, McGraw, Robert P. wrote:
> >
> > > I would like to create a cygwin setup package so that users can
> > > install the same software package on their machines.
> > >
> > > Is this possible? If so can you point me to the documentation that
> > > explains how to do this?
> >
> > Robert,
> >
> > All of the information you're looking for should be on these pages:
> > <http://sourceware.org/cygwin-apps/setup.html> and
> > <http://sourceware.org/cygwin-apps/package-server.html>.
> > You might also Google for "genini cygwin".
> [McGraw, Robert P.]
>
> I have looked through the suggested ULR and not finding my answer.
>
> I googled genini cygwin, and the perl script pointed me
> cygwin.com/setup.html, but it is talking about creating software
> packages. This does not sound like what I need to do.

This sounds like exactly what you asked for above.

> So let me rephrase my question and ask how other people handle this
> through an example.
>
> I need to install the Cygwin/Xserver on multiple machines. I first
> installed Cygwin & Cygwin/X and all necessary and needed packages from a
> cygwin server to my WinXP test system.
>
> Once I have tested and have it working with the right parameters, I now
> need to install the same software on multiple machines. I would like to
> create some kind of bundle or selfextracting file that a user can get
> and install on their WinXP machine. This will be sure that users have
> what they need to run the Cygwin/Xserver.

Creating a self-extracting .exe that installs parts of Cygwin is not a
very Cygwin-friendly way of distributing software, as it won't play nicely
with existing Cygwin installations (see <http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#3PP>).
The approved way of installing Cygwin is using the setup.exe tool.

However, there is a way of doing what you want using setup.exe.  Simply
create a Cygwin package that contains the right configuration files, add a
setup.hint that puts the package in the Base category and requires all the
standard packages you've installed, then publish your package on some web
site and have your users run Cygwin setup and point it to both a standard
mirror and your site.  The users will then have all the right packages
selected automatically.  You might want to have your package initially put
the config files somewhere other than their final location (e.g.,
/etc/defaults), and then have the postinstall script that moves them into
the right location (to ensure that the postinstall scripts of all other
required packages have completed by the time you do that).

If you do it right, the users can later update Cygwin on their machines or
install more packages in a standard way.  Just make sure there are no
clashes of the files actually included in your package with the files
included in other package tarballs, otherwise setup will remove your files
if the user decides to update those packages later.
HTH,
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_	    pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu | igor@watson.ibm.com
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		Igor Peshansky, Ph.D. (name changed!)
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		old name: Igor Pechtchanski
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

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"But no -- you are no fool; you call yourself a fool, there's proof enough in
that!" -- Rostand, "Cyrano de Bergerac"

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