From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Christopher Faylor To: cygwin@cygwin.com Subject: Re: why not use root as root? Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2001 18:30:00 -0000 Message-id: <20010101213050.A21327@redhat.com> References: X-SW-Source: 2001-01/msg00027.html On Tue, Jan 02, 2001 at 01:12:11PM +1100, Robert Collins wrote: >> At last i thought, if it would not work with cygwin on root, then the >> setup.exe would not allow to install in root:-) > >It does work. But there _may_ be gotchas. There _are_ gotchas with other >products. > >What benefits does encouraging this sort of install bring? There are few benefits. It's nice to type "c:\bin\ls" rather than "c:\cygwin\bin\ls". Things may work better with "dejagnu" (as you mentioned). Other thatn that there are no benefits. As you know, we have already hashed this over many times. That is why there is a FAQ entry. The section of the FAQ that is under fire shows the preference of the people who are distributing cygwin and gives a rationale for doing things a certain way. It is not intended to be an exhaustive treatise which magically adapts itself to everyone who reads it. We certainly allow installing to the root. I used to run things that way myself. We have found, through experience, that it is best to install cygwin in its own directory just like all of the packages that were mentioned in Gerrit's previous email. Why do you suppose that packages like "perl" and "Visual C" install their files in separate directories? It is for precisely the same reason as what is done for cygwin. The cited examples actually strengthen the position of putting cygwin in its own directory. In this, as in everything, experience is the best teacher. If you really have to rely on people here to tell you specifically what you need to do on your system then you probably should do what the people are telling you. If you are interested in experimenting, then experiment. We've already rehashed the FAQ a couple of times. If you (Gerrit) don't agree with the sentiments contained in the FAQ then feel free to ignore it. I guess I'll ask David to make the wording even more painfully clear to see if there is any possibility of plugging the hole in this dam. Somehow, I have a feeling that we will still be discussing this years from now, though. cgf -- Want to unsubscribe from this list? Check out: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple