Installation data under "~/Downloads/cygwin/"

Installation data under "~/Downloads/cygwin/"

[Dr Rainer Woitok]

Cygwinners,

after installing and updating Cygwin for several times, my administrator
account's "~/Downloads/cygwin/" directory now  amounts to roughly 6GB of
data, partially dating back to 2009.  Is all this stuff still needed?

If not,  what to  keep?   All the  "*.ini"  files?   Or only  the latest
"*.ini" file?  Or what?

Sincerely
 Rainer

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Re: Installation data under "~/Downloads/cygwin/"

[Marco Atzeri]

On 5/1/2015 1:35 PM, Dr Rainer Woitok wrote:
> Cygwinners,
>
> after installing and updating Cygwin for several times, my administrator
> account's "~/Downloads/cygwin/" directory now  amounts to roughly 6GB of
> data, partially dating back to 2009.  Is all this stuff still needed?
>
> If not,  what to  keep?   All the  "*.ini"  files?   Or only  the latest
> "*.ini" file?  Or what?
>
> Sincerely
>   Rainer
>

It is only a cache depot. You can remove any directory like

   http%3a%2f%2fmirrors.kernel.org%2fsourceware%2fcygwin%2f
   ftp%3a%2f%2fmirrors.kernel.org%2fsourceware%2fcygwin%2f

or similar.
Regards
Marco

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Re: Installation data under "~/Downloads/cygwin/"

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Dr Rainer Woitok!

> after installing and updating Cygwin for several times, my administrator
> account's "~/Downloads/cygwin/" directory now  amounts to roughly 6GB of
> data, partially dating back to 2009.  Is all this stuff still needed?

> If not,  what to  keep?   All the  "*.ini"  files?   Or only  the latest
> "*.ini" file?  Or what?

You may safely nuke everything that is not your Cygwin installation.
If you want to maintain a cache of downloaded packages elsewhere, copy
setup<arch>.exe to a dedicated location before starting an
upgrade/installation.

Alternatively, this script may be of help.

#!/bin/sh

# Cygwin upgrade helper script.
# Usage:
#
#   install-cygwin.sh [ ports ]
#
# If you intend to use it for new installs, you will need minimal bootstrap
# including POSIX shell interpreter and wget utility.
#
# You will have to edit the script to provide mirror URL of your choice.
#
# The script assumes existing installation of the same architecture as
# the host operating system.
# If you want to install 32-bit Cygwin on 64-bit host, override
# $ARCH with value other than "x86_64".
# F.e.
#
#   ARCH=x86 ./install-cygwin.sh

# Mirror URL - don't include trailing slash!
MIRROR="${MIRROR:-http://example.com/Mirrors/sources.redhat.com/cygwin}"

# System architecture.
ARCH="${ARCH:-$(uname -m)}"

# Localization is fine... as long as you don't show it to other people.
export LANG=C

if [ "$ARCH" != "x86_64" ]; then
  ARCH=x86
fi

wget -N "http://cygwin.com/setup-${ARCH}.exe"

if [ "$1" = "ports" ]; then
  KEYS="-K http://cygwinports.org/ports.gpg -s ""${MIRROR%%/}ports/"
  shift
fi
./setup-${ARCH}.exe -O -s "${MIRROR%%/}/" $KEYS $* &


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Saturday, May 2, 2015 01:10:10

Sorry for my terrible english...


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Re: Installation data under "~/Downloads/cygwin/"

[Dr Rainer Woitok]

Andrey,

On Saturday, 2015-05-02 01:35:37 +0300, you wrote:

> ...
> You may safely nuke everything that is not your Cygwin installation.

Well, what precisely IS my Cygwin  installation?  Only the stuff in "C:\
cygwin\"?  And how does Cygwin's "setup.exe"  know which version of what
is already installed?   Does it only look  in "C:\cygwin\"  to determine
that?  What are the "setup.ini"  files under  "C:\Users\Admin\Downloads\
cygwin\" used for?

Sincerely
 Rainer

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Re: Installation data under "~/Downloads/cygwin/"

[Warren Young]

On May 4, 2015, at 11:23 AM, Dr Rainer Woitok <rainer.woitok@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Saturday, 2015-05-02 01:35:37 +0300, you wrote:
> 
>> ...
>> You may safely nuke everything that is not your Cygwin installation.
> 
> Well, what precisely IS my Cygwin  installation?  Only the stuff in "C:\
> cygwin\”?

Yes, though I wouldn’t have put it the way Andrey did.  I mean, c:\windows is not your Cygwin installation, but you cannot safely nuke it. :)

The real point is that the Cygwin download directory can be safely nuked.  Keeping it just speeds reinstallation.  If you’re not storing the Cygwin download directory on a NAS or other type of file server for use by multiple computers, you probably don’t need to keep the download directory.

> And how does Cygwin's "setup.exe"  know which version of what
> is already installed?

It reads the database stored as /etc/setup/installed.db.

> What are the "setup.ini"  files under  "C:\Users\Admin\Downloads\
> cygwin\" used for?

Those are databases listing the packages available from the mirror you selected, along with other metadata such as version numbers, dependency info, descriptions, etc.  You can open it in a text editor and see all of this.
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