Re: Switch to a new PC

[Jon Turney <jon.turney@dronecode.org.uk>]

On 09/02/2022 18:05, Adam Dinwoodie wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 09, 2022 at 04:12:28PM +0100, Vanda Vodkamilkevich wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 13:12  AM  marco.atzeri  wrote:
>>
>>>> I wouldn't expect most tools to work on special files in /dev. Even tar
>>>> fails on /proc, it would begin to pack your local registry...
>>>> Make a basic installation on the new system, then sync the rest.
>>>> An even cleaner way might be to clone your installation via setup, using
>>>> /etc/setup/installed.db - maybe someone has a script for that -
>>>> and then just sync the /home hierarchy.
>>>
>>> script I wrote some time ago for re-installation
>>>
>>>
>> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46829532/cygwin-save-package-selections-for-later-reinstall/
>>>
>>>
>> Just for the record:
>> I just played with the script provided in stackoverflow which generates a
>> bat file, and it seems that the behaviour of the '-P' switch of setup  has
>> changed because now it explicitely needs the version of the package (at
>> least for me it didn't worked without the version number:  " -P
>> package=version_as_seen_by_cygcheck") . Can someone (probably Jon Turney)
>> confirm this usage of the '-P' switch (BTW the mandatory '='  is explained
>> nowhere - Nor in 'setup -h' or the setup web pages - and can be seen only
>> in  the source code).

It's not mandatory.  If you're looking at the source code, you should 
see that the case where '=' is not present is also still handled.

Yes, it should be documented, but so should the rest of the format of 
the string which -P accepts...

> I don't think this is correct.  I use the setup program's -P option
> regularly, including with the latest 2.917 release, and it successfully
> installs packages.  Indeed, I've just tried running it to install
> 2048-cli (given it's a package I know I don't have installed) and it
> successfully installed the package without specifying a version number.
> 
> Can you give a bit more information about exactly what commands you're
> running, what you're expecting to happen, and what precisely happens
> instead?

Yeah, what he said :)

That's not to say that -P isn't picky in the precise format of the 
package list it accepts (that might have unfortunately changed), and the 
error reporting when the package list doesn't meet it's expectations is 
weak, but it works for me, so an instance of a setup invocation which 
fails because it doesn't contain '=' would be very helpful.