Re: terminfo and /usr/share/terminfo requirement

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

On Nov  3 17:34, cyg Simple wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 5:23 PM, Yaakov Selkowitz <yselkowitz@cygwin.com> wrote:
> > On 2014-11-03 16:14, cyg Simple wrote:
> >>
> >> It is true that I am not using setup-${arch}.exe but that shouldn't
> >> matter as long as I have the dependencies resolved.
> >
> >
> > Yes, it does matter; Cygwin setup is the only supported method of creating
> > and managing a Cygwin installation.  Please try again from scratch with
> > Cygwin setup and you will see that there is absolutely no need for a
> > /usr/share => /share mount.
> 
> Are you saying setup or some post install file doesn't mount
> /usr/share?

It's not necessary.  Setup-${arch}.exe creates the default directory
layout.

> If a mounted /usr/share isn't important then why is
> /usr/bin and /usr/lib automounted?

Two reasons:

- Windows.

  DLLs are found in the directory of the application even if $PATH
  doesn't point to the directory containing the DLL.  cygwin1.dll and
  all other cygwin DLLs are in the same path as the essential binaries
  so that you can start them from Windows even if $PATH is not set to
  contain Cygwin's /bin.  If we had separate /bin and /usr/bin dirs, we
  would have the essential binaries spread over two directories, but the
  cygwin DLLs in only one of them, or worse, spread over two dirs as
  well.  Hilarity ensues.

- GCC.

  GCC generates the path to certain files under the lib dir relative to
  the path it has been started from.  So, if you run /bin/gcc, it searches
  for the files under /lib, if you start /usr/bin/gcc it searches under
  /usr/lib.  Since you can do both, you have to handle lib just as bin.

There was never a need to do that for any other directory, that's why
we don't have /sbin <=> /usr/sbin as Fedora.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Maintainer                 cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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