Setup.exe: plans and progress?

Setup.exe: plans and progress?

[luke.kendall]

I was just wondering how the work on setup is progressing?
Specifically, I'm wondering about the ease of use when trying to
install everything.  A lot of the recent work seems to have
concentrated on other issues.

The PC sysadmins here have had a little gentle arm twisting, to include
a Cygwin install on each new Windows PC that gets set up.  The Cygwin
install works off a local install directory that gets updated every few
months.  But today I discovered that what is actually getting installed
is the default (tiny!) configuration.

A key issue is the length of time it would take to click through each
option (skip/keep/ver-w.x.y-z/ver-w'.x'.y'-z'/...) of every package, to
install the "right" version (the one with the largest version number?),
for every new PC.  (The rest of the install and configuration is far
more automted.)

Is this just a function of the way I've installed Cygwin  on the local
server?  Is there some way when setting that up, so that the 1st
install from that local machine to fresh new machines on the LAN take
its configuration (install everything) as the default?

As I understand it, subsequent updates to a PC after the initial
installation are easy.  They'll just update whatever was installed,
by default.  Our trouble is that the *first* install seems very
click-intensive - it's not very automatic.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks,

luke



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Re: Setup.exe: plans and progress?

[Pavel Tsekov]

Hello luke,

Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 10:36:32 AM, you wrote:

lkccca> I was just wondering how the work on setup is progressing?
lkccca> Specifically, I'm wondering about the ease of use when trying to
lkccca> install everything.  A lot of the recent work seems to have
lkccca> concentrated on other issues.

It's easy as a pie! :) Just click next to the category 'All' until the
text becomes 'Install'.


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Re: Setup.exe: plans and progress?

[luke.kendall]

On 16 Jul, Pavel Tsekov replied to:
>  lkccca> I was just wondering how the work on setup is progressing? 
>  lkccca> Specifically, I'm wondering about the ease of use when trying to 
>  lkccca> install everything.  A lot of the recent work seems to have 
>  lkccca> concentrated on other issues. 
>   
>  It's easy as a pie! :) Just click next to the category 'All' until the 
>  text becomes 'Install'. 

Thanks, Pavel, it worked quite well.

The user interface is a little strange - it's not obvious that some
pieces of the display (like the word Default, etc.) are in fact active
controls.

Anyway, it was pretty easy to install everything - just a few mouse
clicks when everything behaved.

Some odd things, though.  setup.exe became exceptionally sluggish when
it got to the package selection screen.  This was true under Win98 at
home, and even more true on a Win2K machine at work.

The delay between clicking on the package install type (Default,
Uninstall, Reinstall, Install), on my Win98 machine, was between 5 and
20 seconds.  On one Win2K machine at work (dual Pentium Xeon II
450MHz), the delays were mostly around a minute or two!

(Watching in the task manager, Setup.exe spent a lot of time in the
state "Not responding".  I don't know how significant that is, though. 
It was showing "Not responding", for example ,during the last few
minutes of the TeX post-install process - even while that window was
showing lots of activity.)

Also strange on that Win2K system was the fact that for the first 10
minutes of trying to select "Install" as the option for all packages,
the choices would only cycle between Default and Uninstall.

In the end we turned off the McAfee virus scanner, and just kept
clicking, and gradually things improved until the delay between a click
and the option changing dropped to about 5 or 10 seconds, then it
allowed us to select Reinstall, then click again to get Default and
then finally Install, and at that point everything started behaving
properly.

Another Win2K machine (a Pentium Pro 200MHz) behaved much better;
I left the setup screen mostly blank when it was working out the list
of packages, and came back 5 mins later to find that the categories
were all on display; and the delay between a click and something
happening was only a few seconds.

We also installed it on a WinXP machine.  That seemed to work fine. 
Response to clicks on the install type were close to immediate.

Anyway, knowing that a full install can be done in just a few clicks,
is great.  Thanks to all those who responded - just thought I'd better
give some feedback.

Cheers,

luke


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RE: Setup.exe: plans and progress?

[Robert Collins]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com 
> [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On Behalf Of 
> luke.kendall@cisra.canon.com.au
> Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2002 6:37 PM

> A key issue is the length of time it would take to click through each
> option (skip/keep/ver-w.x.y-z/ver-w'.x'.y'-z'/...) of every 
> package, to
> install the "right" version (the one with the largest version 
> number?),
> for every new PC.  (The rest of the install and configuration is far
> more automted.)

Pavel has already address'd this issue. Also in the plans are more
command line options, so you can script the full install. This will
happen at some indeterminate time unless one of the following occurs:
*) Someone contributes a patch.
*) Someone funds that specific development. (Contact me off list if you
wish to pursue this).
 
> Is this just a function of the way I've installed Cygwin  on the local
> server?  Is there some way when setting that up, so that the 1st
> install from that local machine to fresh new machines on the LAN take
> its configuration (install everything) as the default?

No. Could there be? Yes, see my point above.
 
> As I understand it, subsequent updates to a PC after the initial
> installation are easy.  They'll just update whatever was installed,
> by default.  Our trouble is that the *first* install seems very
> click-intensive - it's not very automatic.

It's only click intensive if you want precise control. Otherwise it's
about 6 clicks start to finish.

Rob


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