Last Version of Cygwin for XP

Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Jonathan Brenster]

Hi,

I saw a post a number of months back indicating that XP support would
start to phase out in Dec '15.

Is there a last version or intended last version that still officially
supports it?

I understand XP is well past EOL, just looking for the info.

Thanks

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Yaakov Selkowitz]

On 2016-02-09 19:37, Jonathan Brenster wrote:
> I saw a post a number of months back indicating that XP support would
> start to phase out in Dec '15.
>
> Is there a last version or intended last version that still officially
> supports it?

Support for XP has yet to be removed but that is subject to change at 
any time.

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Yaakov

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[LMH]

Yaakov Selkowitz wrote:
> On 2016-02-09 19:37, Jonathan Brenster wrote:
>> I saw a post a number of months back indicating that XP support would
>> start to phase out in Dec '15.
>>
>> Is there a last version or intended last version that still officially
>> supports it?
> 
> Support for XP has yet to be removed but that is subject to change at
> any time.
> 

I would find it very helpful if there was official notification to this
list when a version is released that no longer supports XP. I am sure
that other users like myself who still have XP on some machines would
also appreciate notification.

LMH

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Yaakov Selkowitz]

On 2016-02-10 11:13, LMH wrote:
> Yaakov Selkowitz wrote:
>> On 2016-02-09 19:37, Jonathan Brenster wrote:
>>> I saw a post a number of months back indicating that XP support would
>>> start to phase out in Dec '15.
>>>
>>> Is there a last version or intended last version that still officially
>>> supports it?
>>
>> Support for XP has yet to be removed but that is subject to change at
>> any time.
>
> I would find it very helpful if there was official notification to this
> list when a version is released that no longer supports XP. I am sure
> that other users like myself who still have XP on some machines would
> also appreciate notification.

That will surely be mentioned in the announcement of whichever version 
of the 'cygwin' package this takes effect.

-- 
Yaakov

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[cyg Simple]

On 2/10/2016 12:23 PM, Yaakov Selkowitz wrote:
> On 2016-02-10 11:13, LMH wrote:
>> Yaakov Selkowitz wrote:
>>> On 2016-02-09 19:37, Jonathan Brenster wrote:
>>>> I saw a post a number of months back indicating that XP support would
>>>> start to phase out in Dec '15.
>>>>
>>>> Is there a last version or intended last version that still officially
>>>> supports it?
>>>
>>> Support for XP has yet to be removed but that is subject to change at
>>> any time.
>>
>> I would find it very helpful if there was official notification to this
>> list when a version is released that no longer supports XP. I am sure
>> that other users like myself who still have XP on some machines would
>> also appreciate notification.
> 
> That will surely be mentioned in the announcement of whichever version
> of the 'cygwin' package this takes effect.
> 

A git tag would be helpful for LAST-XP supported version.  There are
certainly plenty of XP still being used that takes advantage of Cygwin.
 The problem will be the other packages that stop support of older
Cygwin versions.

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cyg Simple

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Warren Young]

On Feb 11, 2016, at 11:10 AM, cyg Simple <cygsimple@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> A git tag would be helpful for LAST-XP supported version.

Easy to do, but I wonder how many people would use it?  I doubt there’s a lot of overlap between the group of people unwilling to upgrade their XP boxes and the group willing to install development tools, clone git repos, backport patches from trunk, and build local DLLs.

If there were a large overlap, Red Hat wouldn’t be raking in billions supporting 10-year-old Linux boxes.

That begs a question: Is there a market for a “Cygwin LTS” service, where someone does all that backporting for a tiny recalcitrant minority of Windows XP + Cygwin users?  Who knows, maybe there’s a new line of revenue there for Red Hat. :)

> There are certainly plenty of XP still being used that takes advantage of Cygwin.

I hope not.  Extended support ended nearly two years ago.  That’s 22 months of unfixed security problems, bugs, and regressions with respect to the state of the world.  (By the latter, I mean things like outdated time zone rules.)

The last time this topic came up, I came away with the impression that the only reason Cygwin hasn’t jettisoned XP support yet is that it’s more work than ignoring that old code.

Eventually, Cygwin’s gonna have to scrape that barnacle off the hull.  You should already have your Cygwin XP install trees packed up in anticipation of that day.

> The problem will be the other packages that stop support of older
> Cygwin versions.

That’s why you archive your installation tree.

And for those without that foresight and preparedness, there’s the Cygwin Time Machine.
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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Erik Soderquist]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 2:20 PM, Warren Young wrote:
<snip>
> I hope not.  Extended support ended nearly two years ago.  That’s 22 months of unfixed security problems, bugs, and regressions with respect to the state of the world.  (By the latter, I mean things like outdated time zone rules.)

When your use case doesn't require fixes to these issues, why waste
the resources on newer (and more bloated) packages?  My use case has
XP + Cygwin in multiple VMs that do not even have NICs to begin with,
and do repeat processing on data sets using Windows-only software.
These VMs have a memory footprint of less than 300 MB each, and a disk
footprint under 10 GB, including 3 different snapshots (effectively 3
separate variants of the machine).  The smallest I was able to make
this using Windows 7 was 1.5 GB memory/50 GB disk footprint each, it
benchmarked 30% slower, and offered zero functional benefit.

While mine is very certainly a corner case, such corner cases do
exist, and I get very tired of people consistently implying (or
outright saying) that not upgrading XP is some form of stupidity or
insanity.  Would I trust one of these hosts on the internet at all?
No; that is the key reason they do not even have NICs in the VM
configuration.  All file transfer is done via the virtual
environment's folder sharing mechanism, and the VM host is a Linux box
that has a cron job checking for updates nightly.

So far my only concession to the lack of updates has been to configure
the timezone as UTC/no daylight saving time, and that has worked well.

> The last time this topic came up, I came away with the impression that the only reason Cygwin hasn’t jettisoned XP support yet is that it’s more work than ignoring that old code.

I have the same impression.  Perhaps Corinna can confirm that?

> Eventually, Cygwin’s gonna have to scrape that barnacle off the hull.  You should already have your Cygwin XP install trees packed up in anticipation of that day.

I agree, and for my purposes, the Cygwin I use for these special
purpose hosts is already frozen and archived.


-- Erik

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Warren Young]

On Feb 12, 2016, at 2:58 PM, Erik Soderquist <ErikSoderquist@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 2:20 PM, Warren Young wrote:
> <snip>
>> I hope not.  Extended support ended nearly two years ago.
> 
> ...why waste the resources on newer (and more bloated) packages?

The same blade cuts both ways.  The small and shrinking percentage of Cygwin + XP users aren’t worth much resource spent on the Cygwin side.

Coat your XP boxes in amber and keep on using them, if you must, but any updates you still get are pure bonus at this point.

> I get very tired of people consistently implying (or
> outright saying) that not upgrading XP is some form of stupidity or
> insanity.

Yes, well, when there are still millions of XP-based ATMs out there, I think I have sufficient justification for reflexive shaming. [1]

The Home Depot and Target breaches basically came down to unpatched XP boxes. [2]

> Would I trust one of these hosts on the internet at all?

Of all the XP machines in the world, what percentage have no reason to be on the Internet in 2016?

I suspect there are more cases of low-regard Internet-connected XP boxes than carefully-firewalled cases like yours:

- grandma’s email machine
- the Steam PC in the kids’ room
- the embedded PC inside the Internet-connected kiosk
- the machine driving the vinyl cutter at Bill’s Sign Shop…

Since these boxes are likely to end up as hosts for a botnet, I’m not willing to say it’s just their own lookout.  Their disregard is causing problems for the rest of us.


[1] http://goo.gl/9Zf3pw
[2] http://goo.gl/EJ5tiY
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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Erik Soderquist]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 5:42 PM, Warren Young  wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2016, at 2:58 PM, Erik Soderquist  wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 2:20 PM, Warren Young wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> I hope not.  Extended support ended nearly two years ago.
>>
>> ...why waste the resources on newer (and more bloated) packages?
>
> The same blade cuts both ways.  The small and shrinking percentage
> of Cygwin + XP users aren’t worth much resource spent on the Cygwin
> side.
>
> Coat your XP boxes in amber and keep on using them, if you must,
> but any updates you still get are pure bonus at this point.

I have, my "amber" is the virtual env without network access even
possible for them.  ;)  I've approached the vendor multiple times
about Linux support or opensourcing the package, to no avail, and
currently I'm studying programming myself now with a direct goal of
being able to write a Linux compatible replacement so I can dump my
own amber-coated XP

>> I get very tired of people consistently implying (or
>> outright saying) that not upgrading XP is some form of stupidity or
>> insanity.
>
> Yes, well, when there are still millions of XP-based ATMs out there,
> I think I have sufficient justification for reflexive shaming. [1]
>
> The Home Depot and Target breaches basically came down to
> unpatched XP boxes. [2]

We heartily agree here, these examples should have had XP replaced
_before_ support for XP ran out so there would not have been such a
risk.  I still question whether nor not reflexive is appropriate.

>> Would I trust one of these hosts on the internet at all?
>
> Of all the XP machines in the world, what percentage have no
> reason to be on the Internet in 2016?

I would say zero percent as of 2014.

>
> I suspect there are more cases of low-regard Internet-connected
> XP boxes than carefully-firewalled cases like yours:

Agreed; I seem to be the "freak" a lot of the time

> - grandma’s email machine
> - the Steam PC in the kids’ room
> - the embedded PC inside the Internet-connected kiosk
> - the machine driving the vinyl cutter at Bill’s Sign Shop…
>
> Since these boxes are likely to end up as hosts for a botnet,
> I’m not willing to say it’s just their own lookout.  Their disregard
> is causing problems for the rest of us.

Of these, I think only the vinyl cutter could be salvaged in a way
similar to my setup, and the rest, like it or not, need to be upgraded
or replaced.  Unfortunately, I suspect most users in those scenarios
don't know enough about computers in general to understand why they
need to be upgraded or replaced.

> [1] http://goo.gl/9Zf3pw
> [2] http://goo.gl/EJ5tiY

keeping these links because they are excellent references

-- Erik

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Tony Kelman]

Erik Soderquist <ErikSoderquist <at> gmail.com> writes:

> currently I'm studying programming myself now with a direct goal of
> being able to write a Linux compatible replacement so I can dump my
> own amber-coated XP

Have you tried running the Windows binaries under Wine? It's worth a
shot. Wine has some hefty dependencies but I wonder what the minimum
footprint of a wine-capable VM or container would be.

-Tony



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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Erik Soderquist]

n

On Sat, Feb 13, 2016 at 12:41 PM, Tony Kelman wrote:
> Erik Soderquist writes:
>
>> currently I'm studying programming myself now with a direct goal of
>> being able to write a Linux compatible replacement so I can dump my
>> own amber-coated XP
>
> Have you tried running the Windows binaries under Wine? It's worth a
> shot. Wine has some hefty dependencies but I wonder what the minimum
> footprint of a wine-capable VM or container would be.
>
> -Tony

Yes, I have, two of them fail entirely to start, and the third starts,
but crashes quickly.  As each also has its own hardware drivers, I
suspect it would be harder getting it to work in Wine than writing
fresh.  They are currenty in VMware Player because they do not work
correctly in VirtualBox either.  (I wanted the VM to be open source as
well, but no such luck).  If anyone has suggestions on other open
source virtual environments, I'm willing to try so I can eliminate
VMware.  (Long term goal is 100% open source).

-- Erik

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Eric Blake]

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On 02/13/2016 05:41 PM, Erik Soderquist wrote:
> 
> Yes, I have, two of them fail entirely to start, and the third starts,
> but crashes quickly.  As each also has its own hardware drivers, I
> suspect it would be harder getting it to work in Wine than writing
> fresh.  They are currenty in VMware Player because they do not work
> correctly in VirtualBox either.  (I wanted the VM to be open source as
> well, but no such luck).  If anyone has suggestions on other open
> source virtual environments, I'm willing to try so I can eliminate
> VMware.  (Long term goal is 100% open source).

qemu-kvm works just fine at running Windows guests.  It's what I use for
maintaining my Cygwin packages.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org


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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Corinna Vinschen]

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On Feb 12 16:58, Erik Soderquist wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 2:20 PM, Warren Young wrote:
> > The last time this topic came up, I came away with the impression that the only reason Cygwin hasn’t jettisoned XP support yet is that it’s more work than ignoring that old code.
> 
> I have the same impression.  Perhaps Corinna can confirm that?

Basically, yes.  The next version of Cygwin will still run under XP with
a high likelyhood since I didn't remove any code yet, and I didn't addd
any OS function calls not available on XP.

However, I don't test on XP or 2K3 anymore, and I'll mostly ignore bug
reports related to running under XP in future.  As soon as a new version
of Cygwin won't run on XP/2K3 anymore, I'll let everyone know early
enough.


Corinna

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

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Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Jonathan Brenster!

> I saw a post a number of months back indicating that XP support would
> start to phase out in Dec '15.

> Is there a last version or intended last version that still officially
> supports it?

> I understand XP is well past EOL, just looking for the info.

There was no set date announced yet.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Wednesday, February 10, 2016 05:07:54

Sorry for my terrible english...


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