Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Matt England]

[Warning: This is a complete flame of cygwin's setup.exe.  After being a 
long-time user, I've simply given up patience with the program, and this 
email will probably be the least-courteous note I've posted to any internet 
community in a long, long time.  I simply need to get someone's attention, 
and this is my last ditch attempt before I (and my software group) 
completely abandon cygwin for now and try an work exclusively with 
mingw/mysys.  I do have a purpose with this flame:  I'm trying to find the 
answers as to why setup.exe perplexes myself and the rest of my development 
group.  Please do not take any of this note personally.]

I find cygwin's setup.exe extremely difficult to understand, and over the 
years I've used it, I have found it somewhat buggy (unless the "bugs" I 
find are really just "features" that I don't understand).

The biggest question: why do myself and everyone else in my software 
development group that I manage (as well as everyone else with whom I've 
spoken over the years regarding cygwin) find cygwin's setup.exe so perplexing?

And why does everyone else in this community for which I write 
(cygwin@cygwin.com) seem to have no problems with it?  Or maybe they do?

Here are some example problems scenarios:

* Installing/updating a subversion package

I want to install or update a subversion package for my cygwin system.  I 
tried for about 15 minutes to figure out how to do this (and get a specific 
rev of svn--1.2.3-1) to no avail.  The organization of the modes and views 
and lists of setup.exe to be are extremely unintuitive--I've never 
understood them, and I think I've been using cygwin for about 5 years 
now.  It's not like I'm a rookie.

* Installing a full cygwin set

The only way I get by with cygwin is to always attempt a "full" download 
and hope for the best.  However, a full download of cygwin, at least with 
our controlled setup.exe, is NOT a full download!  We had to write a 
user-installation page just to make sure the installation user had to 
manually select all the packages in the supposed "full" cygwin install 
(about 3-4 packages were missing in the list).  What gives?

* Duplication a cygwin environment from machine to machine

This is critical for development consistency.  We had to download the 
entire package set,

* Figure out which things to install and which ones to not

This is the worst thing of them all.  I always feel like an idiot whenever 
I step into setup.exe


I could probably provide a longer list with much more detail.  However, 
empathy for these issues I suspect are rather binary:  one either 
completely understands what I'm talking about, or they think that I simply 
haven't read the docs well enough and that they can use setup.exe just fine.

There's also the "setup.exe is an extremely powerful and flexible" utility 
argument.  I'll grant anyone this argument; it seems rather capable...I 
guess...** if someone  can figure out how to use it. **  I see flexibility 
coming at the price of understanding.


I have attempted to read several different user guides on the setup.exe 
installation process.  None of them I have seen thus far address the 
questions and problems I have with setup.exe.  But let's say there is a 
document out there that explains all the setup.exe nuances and helps a user 
like me to "see the light."  Why does one require such a document (and a 
side note: why has it been so hard for me to find?)?  Why not simply make a 
more-intuitive flavor of the user experience for installation and upgrades?


Please, please do not label me an "idiot user."  For what it's worth, I 
hold a computer engineering degree from a highly-regarded university, I 
have been a software developer for a long time, I have sysadmin-ed 6 
different Unix systems, Redhat systems, BSD systems, and have been a 
significant VMS user.  On the web-and-email-server side of things: I have 
administered and used qmail, postfix, Apache, Drupal, MediaWiki, phpBB, 
mail2forum, Subversion, and several other similar systems.  I have been a 
sw-developer, tester, systems-integrator, sales-engineer, support 
engineering, and marketing manager for a variety of storage-area networking 
systems (I worked for a company that made them) on a heterogeneous 
storage-area network (Windows NT, 6 Unixes, Linux, etc).  I have helped 
develop industry-leading, patent-pending software.

I'm not trying to impress someone with my "resume."  I'm simply trying to 
convey the fact that 1) I think I am a reasonably-capable technologist, and 
2) I FIND cygwin's setup.exe *THE* MOST DIFFICULT-TO-USE PROGRAM IN ALL THE 
SOFTWARE I CURRENTLY USE TODAY.

It's disappointing, because beyond the install-and-update process, I 
generally find cygwin a pleasure to use.  First of all, it's free of 
charge; further, the software-module updates are fantastics (I subscribe to 
the package-update-notification list, and like how the module/app 
stakeholders pretty much update many things just as soon as they are 
available; note the recent OpenSSL and Subversion updates).  These and 
other things enable my business to be quite productive.

But if this community and the cygwin developers are going to go to such 
great lengths to make such a comprehensive and robust unix-on-windows 
system, why not make a better installation-and-upgrade-package-management 
system?

Here's a thought:  Why not just keep the setup.exe as it is, support all 
the users who I'm sure have mastered it by now and probably love it (for I 
doubt something like that would not have lasted this long without a devoted 
user set), and simply build an additional install-and-upgrade program that 
uses the same "back-end" technology/interfaces and presents something 
different to the user?

Best regards, and thanks in advance for any help.
-Matt


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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Chris Taylor]

Matt England wrote:
<snip>

> 
> The biggest question: why do myself and everyone else in my software 
> development group that I manage (as well as everyone else with whom I've 
> spoken over the years regarding cygwin) find cygwin's setup.exe so 
> perplexing?

I used to find it confusing, and difficult to use.. Then the way of
addressing the views was changed a bit, and you were given the ability
to maximise the setup window.

> 
> And why does everyone else in this community for which I write 
> (cygwin@cygwin.com) seem to have no problems with it?  Or maybe they do?

Perhaps we're all using a newer version?

> 
> Here are some example problems scenarios:
> 
> * Installing/updating a subversion package
> 
> I want to install or update a subversion package for my cygwin system.  
> I tried for about 15 minutes to figure out how to do this (and get a 
> specific rev of svn--1.2.3-1) to no avail.  The organization of the 
> modes and views and lists of setup.exe to be are extremely 
> unintuitive--I've never understood them, and I think I've been using 
> cygwin for about 5 years now.  It's not like I'm a rookie.

This one is easy. Here are some steps for it. Apologies if it reads like
an idiots guide, I spend too much time around (l)users, who most
definitely need things as simplistic as possible, so it's become a habit :(

1) Run setup
2) Select Install from Internet (or you could Download without
Installing, so as to mirror the packages)
3) Pick your mirror - i use http://www.mirror.ac.uk
4) Click View once, to select Full view. Make sure Curr is selected.
5) Scroll down to the packages beginning with s, and click on the Skip
by subversion once, it will select 1.2.3-1.
6) Click View again to select Partial - verify that subversion is in the
list.
7) Click Next until done.

Subversion is now installed.

> 
> * Installing a full cygwin set
> 
> The only way I get by with cygwin is to always attempt a "full" download 
> and hope for the best.  However, a full download of cygwin, at least 
> with our controlled setup.exe, is NOT a full download!  We had to write 
> a user-installation page just to make sure the installation user had to 
> manually select all the packages in the supposed "full" cygwin install 
> (about 3-4 packages were missing in the list).  What gives?

How are you telling setup to select all packages?
After getting the mirror list, are you clicking on the 'Default' by All,
so that it reads Install?
If so, then yes, this does leave some packages not downloaded.
I've just checked this myself. This may be a bug, or it may be because
they duplicate other packages or conflict with them? I couldn't say.
If you need them though, after selecting Install, click View 4 times -
it should now read Not Installed. You will now be able to change each of
these packages to Install.

> 
> * Duplication a cygwin environment from machine to machine
> 
> This is critical for development consistency.  We had to download the 
> entire package set,
> 

Best way to do this is to maintain a local mirror - I think there may be
some documentation on how to do this.. Otherwise, download all the
packages you need for your environment using setup (Download without
Installing), and then always use "Install from Local Directory" to
install. This will probably require you to map drives, or at least have
readily accessible network shares, but should solve the problem.

> * Figure out which things to install and which ones to not
> 
> This is the worst thing of them all.  I always feel like an idiot 
> whenever I step into setup.exe

And in this, you're no different from anyone else that doesn't know what
all the packages do.
I've been using cygwin and linux for around 6 years now, and I still
don't know what half of the things are for - especially when it comes to
the dependancies..
I still hope that some day someone will port apt-get to cygwin, along
with the apt-utils.. I'd assume it's possible, as we already have the
packages in a list format (setup.bz2), but I don't know nearly enough to
attempt this myself.. (hint hint folks ;)

> 
> 
> I could probably provide a longer list with much more detail.  However, 
> empathy for these issues I suspect are rather binary:  one either 
> completely understands what I'm talking about, or they think that I 
> simply haven't read the docs well enough and that they can use setup.exe 
> just fine.

Yes, I'm sure you'll see both cases in the responses - hopefully this
one is helpful to you :)

> 
> There's also the "setup.exe is an extremely powerful and flexible" 
> utility argument.  I'll grant anyone this argument; it seems rather 
> capable...I guess...** if someone  can figure out how to use it. **  I 
> see flexibility coming at the price of understanding.

Given what it does, it is powerful, but not as flexible as it might be.
To be honest, the limitations are imposed by package management as a
whole, at least to some extent.. Or  that's my opinion anyway.

> 
> 
> I have attempted to read several different user guides on the setup.exe 
> installation process.  None of them I have seen thus far address the 
> questions and problems I have with setup.exe.  But let's say there is a 
> document out there that explains all the setup.exe nuances and helps a 
> user like me to "see the light."  Why does one require such a document 
> (and a side note: why has it been so hard for me to find?)?  Why not 
> simply make a more-intuitive flavor of the user experience for 
> installation and upgrades?

How do you define categories that match what every user needs?
You can't. It's a literal impossibility, as no two users will ever want
the same. It forces you to either give users limited choice, thus giving
them packages they have no interest in, or absolutely do not want (see
debian's tasksel for an example), or to give them complete choice (see
dselect, also from debian).
setup.exe takes the latter route, though is vastly more presentable (for
now) than dselect.
Obviously, as the number of packages grows, something may need to be
done to further organise them, but it works reasonably well just now.

<snip>

> I'm not trying to impress someone with my "resume."  I'm simply trying 
> to convey the fact that 1) I think I am a reasonably-capable 
> technologist, and 2) I FIND cygwin's setup.exe *THE* MOST 
> DIFFICULT-TO-USE PROGRAM IN ALL THE SOFTWARE I CURRENTLY USE TODAY.

Have you ever played with dselect? Or aptitude? :P (I find dselect
relatively easy now, I must say, but aptitude drives me nuts).

> 
> It's disappointing, because beyond the install-and-update process, I 
> generally find cygwin a pleasure to use.  First of all, it's free of 
> charge; further, the software-module updates are fantastics (I subscribe 
> to the package-update-notification list, and like how the module/app 
> stakeholders pretty much update many things just as soon as they are 
> available; note the recent OpenSSL and Subversion updates).  These and 
> other things enable my business to be quite productive.
> 
> But if this community and the cygwin developers are going to go to such 
> great lengths to make such a comprehensive and robust unix-on-windows 
> system, why not make a better 
> installation-and-upgrade-package-management system?

See above.

> 
> Here's a thought:  Why not just keep the setup.exe as it is, support all 
> the users who I'm sure have mastered it by now and probably love it (for 
> I doubt something like that would not have lasted this long without a 
> devoted user set), and simply build an additional install-and-upgrade 
> program that uses the same "back-end" technology/interfaces and presents 
> something different to the user?

Possibly something for the future.. However there are always those time
constraints, and so on.. Remember, this is pretty much entirely a
volunteer project...

Anyway. I hope this helps you understand setup better, and find it
easier to use.. Or at least more tolerable ;)

Chris / EqUaTe

-- 

Chris Taylor

IT Manager
Catz Club

Tel: 02074723338
Mob: 07795444733
Fax: 02074331720

4 Daleham Mews
London
NW3 5DB

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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Rob Hatcherson]

Matt:

You wrote:
 > I find cygwin's setup.exe extremely difficult to understand, and over 
the years I've used it, I have found it
 > somewhat buggy (unless the "bugs" I find are really just "features" 
that I don't understand).
<snip>

My personal experience of late has been that the setup app isn't the 
problem as much as a) mirrors that don't seem to have everything on 
them, and b) general frustrations of the "install everything" approach.  
We used to feel like we needed to install everything *and* do it in one 
stroke, and almost without exception ended up with some mirror that was 
missing something, and/or a post-install process that couldn't 
complete.  End result: a mess on the box.

We've found that the "two-pass" install advocated by the cygwin folks 
results in a much nicer installation experience, i.e. where you first 
let the base packages get on the box, then make a second pass to install 
other packages of interest.  We examined the total package set and 
determined we only needed 10-20% of it for general development work 
(e.g. a couple of shells, gcc tool family, make, perl, and maybe a few 
others), so the second pass is no big deal.  Of course your situation 
may be different.

As suggested by the cygwin folks, to do the first pass for scratch 
installs we just click through the whole process one time, i.e. when we 
get to the page in the setup app where you pick the packages you want we 
don't change anything, and just let it go.  On the second pass when we 
get to that page we click on the View button in the upper right corner 
to get the full view, then click on the "Skip" for the add-on packages 
of interest to mark their current version for installation, and install 
those.  I think somewhere in between we make sure the .../bin directory 
where the cygwin dll lives is on the PATH.

Some kind of kickstart facility would be interesting to provide presets 
for the second pass.  I don't know if setup can do this or not.  And 
maybe some brave soul can develop a yum-like utility for cygwin, 
presuming such doesn't already exist somewhere.

Perhaps a similar process combined with the previously suggested local 
mirror will help?

Rob Hatcherson
ZedaSoft, Inc.


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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Jim Kleckner]

Matt England wrote:

  > I find cygwin's setup.exe extremely difficult to understand, and over
> the years I've used it, I have found it somewhat buggy (unless the 
> "bugs" I find are really just "features" that I don't understand).
> 
> The biggest question: why do myself and everyone else in my software 
> development group that I manage (as well as everyone else with whom I've 
> spoken over the years regarding cygwin) find cygwin's setup.exe so 
> perplexing?

One confusing thing that could be improved is to clearly label the
radio buttons as "Default Action:" and to change "Curr" to be something
like "Update" or "Latest".  The very non-standard way that these
buttons interact with the list is confusing and every little bit of
help will help.  A more standard way would be a selection-action
interface.



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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

Matt England wrote:


<snip>


> Best regards, and thanks in advance for any help.


 From what I've seen of the responses so far, you've received some good advice
about things to try to alleviate some (all?) of your difficulties.  I'm sure
others could suggest more but it may be more beneficial to the list and to any
continued discussion if you were to get specific with the issues you see.  In
particular, it would be worthwhile knowing whether suggestions made so far
address your issues.

FWIW, you'll find *lots* of discussion about 'setup.exe', how it works, how
it doesn't, what's being done to improve it, and even ideas of it's
replacement on the cygwin-apps list.  This is actually the list of preference
for these types of discussions and bug reports, though it is not off-topic for
the cygwin list.  Suffice it to say, there are known issues with 'setup.exe'.
Some are working to alleviate these issues and the pace recently has picked
up.  Most of what's been discussed in this thread so far is not new, as you
may notice if you review the cygwin-apps archives.  It's a question of
volunteers to drive a new initiative or accelerate the transformation of the
existing utility.  Feel free to join in! :-)

-- 
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746

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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Brian Dessent]

Matt England wrote:

> * Installing/updating a subversion package
> 
> I want to install or update a subversion package for my cygwin system.  I
> tried for about 15 minutes to figure out how to do this (and get a specific
> rev of svn--1.2.3-1) to no avail.  The organization of the modes and views
> and lists of setup.exe to be are extremely unintuitive--I've never
> understood them, and I think I've been using cygwin for about 5 years
> now.  It's not like I'm a rookie.

It would help if you told us the exact steps that you tried that did not
work.  This is how it's supposed to be done:

1. Run setup, select install from internet, select a mirror, etc. until
you're on the package selection step.
2. Press the View button once to go to the Full view.
3. Scroll down to the subversion package, click on its little "cycle
glyph" until the desired version is in the "New" column.
4. Press next and finish the rest of the steps.

An alternative to #2 is to leave the view on Category and expand the
Devel category, which contains subversion.

If you don't see subversion in the list then it means the mirror you
selected is not a full mirror.  It is my understanding that all the
mirrors presented in the stock list are supposed to be full mirrors that
are all within a day of being up-to-date.  I've never personally
experienced this scenario of a broken mirror but apparently people run
into it.

In general there is rarely a need to mess with the "keep/prev/curr/exp"
radio buttons, so if they confuse you just pretend they don't exist and
you should be fine.  Also, if you're using the latest version of setup
you should get tooltips if you hover over these things that explain what
they mean.

> * Duplication a cygwin environment from machine to machine
> 
> This is critical for development consistency.  We had to download the
> entire package set,

This is possible and takes a bit of work, but is not that difficult. 
There are several ways of doing this, and they are all discussed in the
mailing list archives.

> * Figure out which things to install and which ones to not
> 
> This is the worst thing of them all.  I always feel like an idiot whenever
> I step into setup.exe

If you want package "X" just select "X".  You don't have to know or care
what packages are needed to support "X", as they will be selected for
you when you want "X".  E.g. if you want gcc, select "gcc-core" (and
optionally "gcc-g++" if you also need C++ support.)  If you want perl,
select "perl".  Again if you could give a specific example of something
you were trying to accomplish and what you tried that was not
successful, it would help us understand what is the most confusing.

Brian

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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 03:20:48PM -0700, Brian Dessent wrote:
>If you don't see subversion in the list then it means the mirror you
>selected is not a full mirror.  It is my understanding that all the
>mirrors presented in the stock list are supposed to be full mirrors that
>are all within a day of being up-to-date.  I've never personally
>experienced this scenario of a broken mirror but apparently people run
>into it.

I'll reiterate that the mirrors list is checked twice a day for accuracy
so the only way that a mirror could be out-of-date is if you don't specify
it from the list of mirrors but, instead, use one that isn't in the list.

Maybe setup.exe could check to see if the mirror that users specify is
in the list of mirrors and issue an error if it isn't.  That might cut
down on people reporting "bad mirrors".

>> * Duplication a cygwin environment from machine to machine
>> 
>> This is critical for development consistency.  We had to download the
>> entire package set,
>
>This is possible and takes a bit of work, but is not that difficult. 
>There are several ways of doing this, and they are all discussed in the
>mailing list archives.

And, it's not really a setup.exe goal...

cgf

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RE: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt England
> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 9:03 AM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Cc: mengland@mengland.net
> Subject: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?
> 
> [Warning: This is a complete flame of cygwin's setup.exe.  
> After being a long-time user, I've simply given up patience 
> with the program, and this email will probably be the 
> least-courteous note I've posted to any internet community in 
> a long, long time.  I simply need to get someone's attention, 
> and this is my last ditch attempt before I (and my software 
> group) completely abandon cygwin for now and try an work 
> exclusively with mingw/mysys.  I do have a purpose with this 
> flame:  I'm trying to find the answers as to why setup.exe 
> perplexes myself and the rest of my development group.  
> Please do not take any of this note personally.]
> 
> I find cygwin's setup.exe extremely difficult to understand, 
> and over the years I've used it, I have found it somewhat 
> buggy (unless the "bugs" I find are really just "features" 
> that I don't understand).
> 

You should have seen it in the Before-Time.

Yes, it has been buggy in the past, even the fairly recent past.  The
current version however is quite solid, at least the features I use.  Your
statement about it being "extremely difficult to understand" is, well,
extremely difficult for me to understand.  Yes, there are a number of
nonintuitive GUI things going on (which need to be fixed), but if you have
indeed be using it for any length of time, as you claim, they are not all
that big of issues.

> The biggest question: why do myself and everyone else in my 
> software development group that I manage (as well as everyone 
> else with whom I've spoken over the years regarding cygwin) 
> find cygwin's setup.exe so perplexing?
> 
> And why does everyone else in this community for which I write
> (cygwin@cygwin.com) seem to have no problems with it?  Or 
> maybe they do?
> 

Everybody has *some* problems with it.  Few find it as unusable as you are
claiming here.

> Here are some example problems scenarios:
> 
> * Installing/updating a subversion package
> 
> I want to install or update a subversion package for my 
> cygwin system.  I tried for about 15 minutes to figure out 
> how to do this (and get a specific rev of svn--1.2.3-1) to no 
> avail.  The organization of the modes and views and lists of 
> setup.exe to be are extremely unintuitive--I've never 
> understood them,

Nobody ever has.  That's problem number one that needs fixing.  Trouble is,
it's a big, messy, un-fun job.

> and I think I've been using cygwin for about 
> 5 years now.  It's not like I'm a rookie.
> 

Perhaps not, but some of your statements below.....

> * Installing a full cygwin set
> 

There is no such thing.  Well, not since B21 anyway, and that was destroyed
in the same asteroid impact that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct.  Traces
of B21 are still detectable in the K-T boundary.

> The only way I get by with cygwin is to always attempt a 
> "full" download and hope for the best.

Ok then, we've found your problem.  Don't try to do what isn't possible.

>  However, a full 
> download of cygwin, at least with our controlled setup.exe, 

"[your] controlled setup.exe"?  What do you mean by this?  This could be
problem number two.

> is NOT a full download!

Correct.

>  We had to write a user-installation 
> page just to make sure the installation user had to manually 
> select all the packages in the supposed "full" cygwin install 
> (about 3-4 packages were missing in the list).  What gives?
> 

I'm not sure what gives.  I don't understand that paragraph.  There's no
such thing as a "full cygwin install", that's your primary source of
confusion.

> * Duplication a cygwin environment from machine to machine
> 
> This is critical for development consistency.

Mmmmmm... not really, but that's an argument for another day.

>  We had to 
> download the entire package set,
> 

Even things like "lilypond"?  No.  What did you *really* do?

> * Figure out which things to install and which ones to not
> 
> This is the worst thing of them all.  I always feel like an 
> idiot whenever I step into setup.exe
> 

Well, I don't know what to tell you here.  If you want to install something,
yes, it is a prerequisite that you have to know what it is that you want to
install.  That's hardly Cygwin-specific.

> 
> I could probably provide a longer list with much more detail. 
>  However, 
> empathy for these issues I suspect are rather binary:  one either 
> completely understands what I'm talking about, or they think 
> that I simply 
> haven't read the docs well enough and that they can use 
> setup.exe just fine.
> 

I can use setup.exe just fine, and I understand to a certain point what
you're talking about.  But I do have to part ways with you when you blame
setup because you don't know what programs you want to install.  Doesn't
that seem just a little bit silly to you?

> There's also the "setup.exe is an extremely powerful and 
> flexible" utility 
> argument.

Nobody has ever made that argument.  Cygwin's setup is neither extremely
powerful nor extremely flexible.  The furthest I would personally go is,
"nearly adequate".

>  I'll grant anyone this argument; it seems rather 
> capable...I 
> guess...** if someone  can figure out how to use it. **  I 
> see flexibility 
> coming at the price of understanding.
> 

Again, I've never heard anybody accuse setup of being too flexible.  Setup
has UI problems.  Historically, it has had much worse UI problems than it
currently does.  These problems are not the due to too much "flexibility" or
"power" or "capabilities" - it's due simply to the common ravages of an open
source software project which relies on the kindness of strangers.

Now, if you'd like to cut me a nice check, I'll make that sucker dance for
you.  But even I can't make it guess what packages you want to install.

> 
> I have attempted to read several different user guides on the 
> setup.exe 
> installation process.  None of them I have seen thus far address the 
> questions and problems I have with setup.exe.  But let's say 
> there is a 
> document out there that explains all the setup.exe nuances 
> and helps a user 
> like me to "see the light."  Why does one require such a 
> document (and a 
> side note: why has it been so hard for me to find?)?  Why not 
> simply make a 
> more-intuitive flavor of the user experience for installation 
> and upgrades?
> 

Like I said, cut me a check and I'll get right on it.

> 
> Please, please do not label me an "idiot user."  For what 
> it's worth, I 
> hold a computer engineering degree from a highly-regarded 
> university, I 
> have been a software developer for a long time, I have sysadmin-ed 6 
> different Unix systems, Redhat systems, BSD systems, and have been a 
> significant VMS user.  On the web-and-email-server side of 
> things: I have 
> administered and used qmail, postfix, Apache, Drupal, 
> MediaWiki, phpBB, 
> mail2forum, Subversion, and several other similar systems.  I 
> have been a 
> sw-developer, tester, systems-integrator, sales-engineer, support 
> engineering, and marketing manager for a variety of 
> storage-area networking 
> systems (I worked for a company that made them) on a heterogeneous 
> storage-area network (Windows NT, 6 Unixes, Linux, etc).  I 
> have helped 
> develop industry-leading, patent-pending software.
> 

I'm one of the many people who have worked on Cygwin's setup program.  I
have also developed industry-leading, patent-pending software.

> I'm not trying to impress someone with my "resume."  I'm 
> simply trying to 
> convey the fact that 1) I think I am a reasonably-capable 
> technologist, and 
> 2) I FIND cygwin's setup.exe *THE* MOST DIFFICULT-TO-USE 
> PROGRAM IN ALL THE 
> SOFTWARE I CURRENTLY USE TODAY.
> 

So you don't use vi? ;-)

> It's disappointing, because beyond the install-and-update process, I 
> generally find cygwin a pleasure to use.  First of all, it's free of 
> charge; further, the software-module updates are fantastics 
> (I subscribe to 
> the package-update-notification list, and like how the module/app 
> stakeholders pretty much update many things just as soon as they are 
> available; note the recent OpenSSL and Subversion updates).  
> These and 
> other things enable my business to be quite productive.
> 
> But if this community and the cygwin developers are going to 
> go to such 
> great lengths to make such a comprehensive and robust unix-on-windows 
> system, why not make a better 
> installation-and-upgrade-package-management 
> system?
> 

Hear hear.  (Make it drawn on a US bank please).

> Here's a thought:  Why not just keep the setup.exe as it is, 
> support all 
> the users who I'm sure have mastered it by now and probably 
> love it (for I 
> doubt something like that would not have lasted this long 
> without a devoted 
> user set),

Allow me to state this as an axiom: There is not a single soul who is in
love with Cygwin's setup.

> and simply build an additional install-and-upgrade 
> program that 
> uses the same "back-end" technology/interfaces and presents something 
> different to the user?
> 

We thought of that several years ago.  Problem is, there is no "backend" -
we inherited a codebase with a tightly interwoven GUI and business logic.
Since then, the GUI has been improved dramatically, innumerable defects have
been fixed, several features have been added, and some work has gone into
separating the business logic.

That work was, as far as I know, all gratis.  Now, if you're eating the
bread from the sweat of another man's brow, as you claim to be doing, it
seems to me that the best way to get what you want is to contribute to the
program's improvement in some manner, rather than ranting against the hand
that's feeding you.

-- 
Gary R. Van Sickle
 


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RE: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt England
> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 9:03 AM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Cc: mengland@mengland.net
> Subject: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?
> 
> [Warning: This is a complete flame of cygwin's setup.exe.  
> After being a long-time user, I've simply given up patience 
> with the program, and this email will probably be the 
> least-courteous note I've posted to any internet community in 
> a long, long time.  I simply need to get someone's attention, 
> and this is my last ditch attempt before I (and my software 
> group) completely abandon cygwin for now and try an work 
> exclusively with mingw/mysys.  I do have a purpose with this 
> flame:  I'm trying to find the answers as to why setup.exe 
> perplexes myself and the rest of my development group.  
> Please do not take any of this note personally.]
> 
> I find cygwin's setup.exe extremely difficult to understand, 
> and over the years I've used it, I have found it somewhat 
> buggy (unless the "bugs" I find are really just "features" 
> that I don't understand).
> 

You should have seen it in the Before-Time.

Yes, it has been buggy in the past, even the fairly recent past.  The
current version however is quite solid, at least the features I use.  Your
statement about it being "extremely difficult to understand" is, well,
extremely difficult for me to understand.  Yes, there are a number of
nonintuitive GUI things going on (which need to be fixed), but if you have
indeed be using it for any length of time, as you claim, they are not all
that big of issues.

> The biggest question: why do myself and everyone else in my 
> software development group that I manage (as well as everyone 
> else with whom I've spoken over the years regarding cygwin) 
> find cygwin's setup.exe so perplexing?
> 
> And why does everyone else in this community for which I write
> (cygwin@cygwin.com) seem to have no problems with it?  Or 
> maybe they do?
> 

Everybody has *some* problems with it.  Few find it as unusable as you are
claiming here.

> Here are some example problems scenarios:
> 
> * Installing/updating a subversion package
> 
> I want to install or update a subversion package for my 
> cygwin system.  I tried for about 15 minutes to figure out 
> how to do this (and get a specific rev of svn--1.2.3-1) to no 
> avail.  The organization of the modes and views and lists of 
> setup.exe to be are extremely unintuitive--I've never 
> understood them,

Nobody ever has.  That's problem number one that needs fixing.  Trouble is,
it's a big, messy, un-fun job.

> and I think I've been using cygwin for about 
> 5 years now.  It's not like I'm a rookie.
> 

Perhaps not, but some of your statements below.....

> * Installing a full cygwin set
> 

There is no such thing.  Well, not since B21 anyway, and that was destroyed
in the same asteroid impact that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct.  Traces
of B21 are still detectable in the K-T boundary.

> The only way I get by with cygwin is to always attempt a 
> "full" download and hope for the best.

Ok then, we've found your problem.  Don't try to do what isn't possible.

>  However, a full 
> download of cygwin, at least with our controlled setup.exe, 

"[your] controlled setup.exe"?  What do you mean by this?  This could be
problem number two.

> is NOT a full download!

Correct.

>  We had to write a user-installation 
> page just to make sure the installation user had to manually 
> select all the packages in the supposed "full" cygwin install 
> (about 3-4 packages were missing in the list).  What gives?
> 

I'm not sure what gives.  I don't understand that paragraph.  There's no
such thing as a "full cygwin install", that's your primary source of
confusion.

> * Duplication a cygwin environment from machine to machine
> 
> This is critical for development consistency.

Mmmmmm... not really, but that's an argument for another day.

>  We had to 
> download the entire package set,
> 

Even things like "lilypond"?  No.  What did you *really* do?

> * Figure out which things to install and which ones to not
> 
> This is the worst thing of them all.  I always feel like an 
> idiot whenever I step into setup.exe
> 

Well, I don't know what to tell you here.  If you want to install something,
yes, it is a prerequisite that you have to know what it is that you want to
install.  That's hardly Cygwin-specific.

> 
> I could probably provide a longer list with much more detail. 
>  However, 
> empathy for these issues I suspect are rather binary:  one either 
> completely understands what I'm talking about, or they think 
> that I simply 
> haven't read the docs well enough and that they can use 
> setup.exe just fine.
> 

I can use setup.exe just fine, and I understand to a certain point what
you're talking about.  But I do have to part ways with you when you blame
setup because you don't know what programs you want to install.  Doesn't
that seem just a little bit silly to you?

> There's also the "setup.exe is an extremely powerful and 
> flexible" utility 
> argument.

Nobody has ever made that argument.  Cygwin's setup is neither extremely
powerful nor extremely flexible.  The furthest I would personally go is,
"nearly adequate".

>  I'll grant anyone this argument; it seems rather 
> capable...I 
> guess...** if someone  can figure out how to use it. **  I 
> see flexibility 
> coming at the price of understanding.
> 

Again, I've never heard anybody accuse setup of being too flexible.  Setup
has UI problems.  Historically, it has had much worse UI problems than it
currently does.  These problems are not the due to too much "flexibility" or
"power" or "capabilities" - it's due simply to the common ravages of an open
source software project which relies on the kindness of strangers.

Now, if you'd like to cut me a nice check, I'll make that sucker dance for
you.  But even I can't make it guess what packages you want to install.

> 
> I have attempted to read several different user guides on the 
> setup.exe 
> installation process.  None of them I have seen thus far address the 
> questions and problems I have with setup.exe.  But let's say 
> there is a 
> document out there that explains all the setup.exe nuances 
> and helps a user 
> like me to "see the light."  Why does one require such a 
> document (and a 
> side note: why has it been so hard for me to find?)?  Why not 
> simply make a 
> more-intuitive flavor of the user experience for installation 
> and upgrades?
> 

Like I said, cut me a check and I'll get right on it.

> 
> Please, please do not label me an "idiot user."  For what 
> it's worth, I 
> hold a computer engineering degree from a highly-regarded 
> university, I 
> have been a software developer for a long time, I have sysadmin-ed 6 
> different Unix systems, Redhat systems, BSD systems, and have been a 
> significant VMS user.  On the web-and-email-server side of 
> things: I have 
> administered and used qmail, postfix, Apache, Drupal, 
> MediaWiki, phpBB, 
> mail2forum, Subversion, and several other similar systems.  I 
> have been a 
> sw-developer, tester, systems-integrator, sales-engineer, support 
> engineering, and marketing manager for a variety of 
> storage-area networking 
> systems (I worked for a company that made them) on a heterogeneous 
> storage-area network (Windows NT, 6 Unixes, Linux, etc).  I 
> have helped 
> develop industry-leading, patent-pending software.
> 

I'm one of the many people who have worked on Cygwin's setup program.  I
have also developed industry-leading, patent-pending software.

> I'm not trying to impress someone with my "resume."  I'm 
> simply trying to 
> convey the fact that 1) I think I am a reasonably-capable 
> technologist, and 
> 2) I FIND cygwin's setup.exe *THE* MOST DIFFICULT-TO-USE 
> PROGRAM IN ALL THE 
> SOFTWARE I CURRENTLY USE TODAY.
> 

So you don't use vi? ;-)

> It's disappointing, because beyond the install-and-update process, I 
> generally find cygwin a pleasure to use.  First of all, it's free of 
> charge; further, the software-module updates are fantastics 
> (I subscribe to 
> the package-update-notification list, and like how the module/app 
> stakeholders pretty much update many things just as soon as they are 
> available; note the recent OpenSSL and Subversion updates).  
> These and 
> other things enable my business to be quite productive.
> 
> But if this community and the cygwin developers are going to 
> go to such 
> great lengths to make such a comprehensive and robust unix-on-windows 
> system, why not make a better 
> installation-and-upgrade-package-management 
> system?
> 

Hear hear.  (Make it drawn on a US bank please).

> Here's a thought:  Why not just keep the setup.exe as it is, 
> support all 
> the users who I'm sure have mastered it by now and probably 
> love it (for I 
> doubt something like that would not have lasted this long 
> without a devoted 
> user set),

Allow me to state this as an axiom: There is not a single soul who is in
love with Cygwin's setup.

> and simply build an additional install-and-upgrade 
> program that 
> uses the same "back-end" technology/interfaces and presents something 
> different to the user?
> 

We thought of that several years ago.  Problem is, there is no "backend" -
we inherited a codebase with a tightly interwoven GUI and business logic.
Since then, the GUI has been improved dramatically, innumerable defects have
been fixed, several features have been added, and some work has gone into
separating the business logic.

That work was, as far as I know, all gratis.  Now, if you're eating the
bread from the sweat of another man's brow, as you claim to be doing, it
seems to me that the best way to get what you want is to contribute to the
program's improvement in some manner, rather than ranting against the hand
that's feeding you.

-- 
Gary R. Van Sickle
 


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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Rob Hatcherson]

Christopher Faylor wrote:

>I'll reiterate that the mirrors list is checked twice a day for accuracy
>so the only way that a mirror could be out-of-date is if you don't specify
>it from the list of mirrors but, instead, use one that isn't in the list.
>
>Maybe setup.exe could check to see if the mirror that users specify is
>in the list of mirrors and issue an error if it isn't.  That might cut
>down on people reporting "bad mirrors".
>  
>

It would seem useful to figure out what is causing people to believe a 
mirror is out of whack.  I know I've never attempted to install cygwin 
from anywhere but the mirrors offered by the setup app, and I commonly 
encounter both of the following messages before downloads even start:

- This setup.ini is older than the one you used last time you installed 
cygwin.  Proceed anyway?
This suggests that the mirror is out of date.

- Unable to get setup.ini from <pick your mirror URL>
This suggests the mirror is incomplete (i.e. who knows what else is 
missing).

I suspect other setup-related problems I've encountered were a 
side-effect of the now-abandonded "install it all at once" approach, so 
I'd have to work at coming up with concrete examples of things that 
ended up missing or nonfunctional via the advocated two-stage install.  
Anyone?

Rob


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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 10:05:27PM -0500, Rob Hatcherson wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>I'll reiterate that the mirrors list is checked twice a day for
>>accuracy so the only way that a mirror could be out-of-date is if you
>>don't specify it from the list of mirrors but, instead, use one that
>>isn't in the list.
>>
>>Maybe setup.exe could check to see if the mirror that users specify is
>>in the list of mirrors and issue an error if it isn't.  That might cut
>>down on people reporting "bad mirrors".
>
>It would seem useful to figure out what is causing people to believe a
>mirror is out of whack.

It's not a mystery.  Presumably it's because some chose a mirror last
week and is still trying to use it today.  The mirror is no longer in
the mirrors list because it is not up-to-date but, since it has been
saved, and since they have told setup.exe to use it by default,
setup.exe goes ahead and uses it anyway.

That's why I mentioned checking to see if it's in the mirrors list.

I guess I should point out that the mirrors list is not even like a
broken watch in that it can't be guaranteed to be accurate twice a day
due to some obvious race conditions that can exist when a package is
updated.  And, there is an algorithm in the mirror checking that tries
not to drop a mirror from the list unless it fails twice in a row.
However, the mirrors list shouldn't contain mirrors that are more than
24 hours out of date, at least.

>I know I've never attempted to install cygwin from anywhere but the
>mirrors offered by the setup app, and I commonly encounter both of the
>following messages before downloads even start:
>
>- This setup.ini is older than the one you used last time you installed
>cygwin.  Proceed anyway?  This suggests that the mirror is out of date.

How could it suggest that?  That would suggest that the mirror is going
backwards in time.  Otherwise you'd get exactly the same date.

>- Unable to get setup.ini from <pick your mirror URL>
>This suggests the mirror is incomplete (i.e. who knows what else is 
>missing).

The suggests that you are having network problems connecting to a mirror
and should try another mirror.  The fact that sourceware.org can connect
to a mirror system doesn't mean that you can.  Isn't that sort of obvious?
Or are you omitting some details here?

>I suspect other setup-related problems I've encountered were a 
>side-effect of the now-abandonded "install it all at once" approach, so 
>I'd have to work at coming up with concrete examples of things that 
>ended up missing or nonfunctional via the advocated two-stage install.  
>Anyone?

The 'now-abandoned "install it all at once"' problem was unabandoned two
setup releases ago (I believe), recent advice notwithstanding.  Maybe
the setup developers will correct me if I'm wrong but AFAIK, there is no
longer any reason to split a cygwin install into two.

cgf

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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Brian Dessent]

Christopher Faylor wrote:

> The 'now-abandoned "install it all at once"' problem was unabandoned two
> setup releases ago (I believe), recent advice notwithstanding.  Maybe
> the setup developers will correct me if I'm wrong but AFAIK, there is no
> longer any reason to split a cygwin install into two.

The original reason for the advice was because there was a handle leak,
which caused problems if setup tried to extract from a large number of
.tar.bz2s in one session.  That has been corrected (I think?) and so in
theory it should no longer matter.

It's possible that there is still something wacked in the postinstall
ordering that would cause errors if you tried to go from zero to every
available package in one go.  I'll have to try that scenario and see if
I can make it happen.  Though AFAIK it should run them in dependency
order and work fine.

Brian

(It's unfortunate that most of the sentences above are "in theory" and
"I think".  I would like to say for sure that it should work, but it's
not something that I've personally done that often because to be honest
I really loathe the idea that one would have to install all 2.4GB of
stuff just because one didn't know what was required.)

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Re: Why is setup.exe so difficult? Am I missing something?

[Igor Pechtchanski]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Brian Dessent wrote:

> Christopher Faylor wrote:
>
> > The 'now-abandoned "install it all at once"' problem was unabandoned two
> > setup releases ago (I believe), recent advice notwithstanding.  Maybe
> > the setup developers will correct me if I'm wrong but AFAIK, there is no
> > longer any reason to split a cygwin install into two.
>
> The original reason for the advice was because there was a handle leak,
> which caused problems if setup tried to extract from a large number of
> .tar.bz2s in one session.  That has been corrected (I think?) and so in
> theory it should no longer matter.

FWIW, I haven't had any problems with rather complex (i.e., much larger
than "base") installs with recent setup versions.  I haven't tried the
full install.

> It's possible that there is still something wacked in the postinstall
> ordering that would cause errors if you tried to go from zero to every
> available package in one go.  I'll have to try that scenario and see if
> I can make it happen.  Though AFAIK it should run them in dependency
> order and work fine.
>
> Brian

No, until <http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2005-09/msg00503.html> is
applied, setup will run postinstall scripts in alphabetical order.

> (It's unfortunate that most of the sentences above are "in theory" and
> "I think".  I would like to say for sure that it should work, but it's
> not something that I've personally done that often because to be honest
> I really loathe the idea that one would have to install all 2.4GB of
> stuff just because one didn't know what was required.)

It should be reasonably easy to add a dialog box that asks such people
"Are you SURE you want to install EVERYTHING?  That's 2.4GB!".  That ought
to discourage superfluous full installs.  The number in the box could be
easily computed from setup.ini.

However, I've suggested previously to create a few "installation profiles"
(e.g., "development", that includes "make", "gcc", "vi", etc, or
"maintainer development", which also adds the autotools).  I'm not
volunteering to implement this, as I'm devoting my time to a new UI, but
it shouldn't be particularly hard -- these "profiles" sound like simple
"sets of package names".  Initially, they may even duplicate information
(so, the "maintainer development" example profile above will include all
the packages from the "development" profile, instead of having a
dependence on it).  This looks sufficiently decoupled from the setup
versioning and package selection logic that it doesn't require very deep
knowledge of it, and is a good exercise to gain more such knowledge.  Any
takers?
	Igor
-- 
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ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor@watson.ibm.com
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

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