RE: Total lack of accurate documentation!

RE: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Andrew Dalgleish]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Timothy Reaves [SMTP:treaves@y11a165.neo.rr.com]
> Sent:	1999 February 25, Thursday 06:13
> To:	cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com
> Subject:	Total lack of accurate documentation!
> 
>      I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
> meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There
> is
> much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!
> 
>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product,
> or
> slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
> search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
> problem it looks like.
> 
>     There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?
>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from
> linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>         when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                     bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                     bash: alias: '=' not found
[Andrew Dalgleish]  
You have spaces around your equals sign.
378$ alias dir = ls
bash.exe: alias: `dir' not found
bash.exe: alias: `=' not found
alias ls='ls --color=tty -F'
379$ alias dir=ls
380$


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RE: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Andrew Dalgleish]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Timothy Reaves [SMTP:treaves@y11a165.neo.rr.com]
> Sent:	1999 February 25, Thursday 06:13
> To:	cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com
> Subject:	Total lack of accurate documentation!
> 
>      I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
> meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There
> is
> much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!
> 
>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product,
> or
> slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
> search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
> problem it looks like.
> 
>     There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?
>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from
> linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>         when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                     bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                     bash: alias: '=' not found
[Andrew Dalgleish]  
You have spaces around your equals sign.
378$ alias dir = ls
bash.exe: alias: `dir' not found
bash.exe: alias: `=' not found
alias ls='ls --color=tty -F'
379$ alias dir=ls
380$


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[DJ Delorie]

> First, it's nice to know that this list is populated by so many thin
> skinned jerks that don't mind typing off a quick e-mail who's contents
> they'd NEVER say to someone's face!

I hope you're not referring to me, because I'm pretty thick skinned
and I *would* say it to your face.  However, if you heard it
face-to-face you'd realize that I'm not saying what I say to be a
jerk, but that I mean well and I want to bring up issues so that they
can be *resolved*, not rubbed in peoples noses.  Some things get lost
in email, so I usually assume the best of people.

> I have no problem helping write documentation.  First I need to learn
> the product.  This would be facilitated by easier access to the mailing
> list except my mail server refuses to let me connect to the cygwin one.
> Something about a known source of spam or some such.  Never seen that
> before.

Mail me one of the bounces (try postmaster@delorie.com if my server
bounces you too) and I'll see if I can point out what your site needs
to do to get off the spam filters.

> As I can not actually respond the e-mail vie the 'reply' function,

Why not?

> Relating to what DJ Delorie said:  thanks for the note.  Having only one
> person handling documentation for a product this size must really suck!

Yup.  Having only two cygnus developers (part time, at that) sucks
too, but we make do with what we've got.

> I'll try and compile a list of stuff I've found to be inaccurate and
> forward them.  Until then, is there anything in particular you could use
> some help with?

No, nothing in particular.  We try to fix the things *we* know about,
at least :-)

> As to the two problems I mentioned, yes, the alias was fixed by
> removing the spaces.

Great!

> Several people mentioned the mount issue, though I
> didn't understand fully their intent.  If I do a 'mount' I can see where
> d:\temp is mounted to /tmp.  I can cd to /tmp. But /tmp does not show up
> in a ls -la.

Exit from bash, so that you're back in command.com (or cmd.exe).
*Now* make the directory, so that it's a real windows-type directory.
(i.e: "C:\> mkdir \tmp").  Now go back into bash.  The presence of a
real directory under the cygwin mount point makes some of the cygwin
functions behave better, like opendir (on which ls is based).

> Under unix this never would have been an issue, so apparently I just
> don't understand the port.  Can someone point out where I screwed up?

Under unix, the mount would have *failed* without the underlying mount
point directory.  Cygwin allows you to mount things without the
underlying directory, a point which has been argued both ways in the
past, which has some benefits and, as you see, some problems.

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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Earnie Boyd]

---Timothy Reaves <treaves@y11a165.neo.rr.com> wrote:
>
>      I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
> meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There
is
> much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!
> 
>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product,
or
> slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
> search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
> problem it looks like.
> 
>     There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?

The filesystem emulation is broken on this point.  Hopefully it will
be fixed by the next release.

Did you try it with a mount point created at /?  
I.E.: mkdir /tmp; mount d:\\temp /tmp

Although this will change the `ls -la /' to display the /tmp if you
`ls -la tmp' it will display the mount point directory which will be
empty instead of the mounted directory.

>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from
linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>         when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                     bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                     bash: alias: '=' not found
> 

Remove the spaces.  bash requires: alias dir='ls -la --color=yes'

==
-                        \\||//
-------------------o0O0--Earnie--0O0o-------------------
--                earnie_boyd@yahoo.com               --
-- http://www.freeyellow.com/members5/gw32/index.html --
----------------------ooo0O--O0ooo----------------------

PS: Newbie's, you should visit my page.
_________________________________________________________
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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Paul Kinnucan]

At 02:12 PM 2/24/99 -0500, Timothy Reaves wrote:
>     I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
>meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There is

I'm sure the Cygnus developers who have given so freely of their time
to our benefit would be delighted if you volunteered
to help upgrade the documentation.

- Paul


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[DJ Delorie]

> Sad.  There is much missing and a lot of what is there is outright
> wrong!

Note that in some cases, the documentation is right but the sources
are buggy.  Saying that most of it is wrong is not helpful.  Please be
specific about what parts are wrong and why you think they're wrong,
or we'll never be able to fix them.

>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
> slow documentation people?

The only one writing documentation at the moment is ME.  Geoff helped
for a while, but he's not in our group any more.  We have no tech
writers assigned to us, except for to pretty-up what little we have
for releases.

At the moment, I'm just too busy to work on the documentation.  If you
want more docs, write them and send them in!

> I have tried to use the search feature to search the past mails, but
> their search engine is broke due to a mount problem it looks like.

I've got a search engine at http://www.delorie.com/archives/ for
messages since we moved to sourceware, which was quite recent.  Your
best bet at the moment is to ask on the list, like you did.

>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?

Create a /tmp directory on your / drive and it will.  Unix requires
this also.  It's usually a good idea to create such directories.

>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'

alias dir='ls -la --color=yet'

Don't type the spaces around the '='

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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, Feb 24, 1999 at 02:33:44PM -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:
>>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
>> slow documentation people?
>
>The only one writing documentation at the moment is ME.  Geoff helped
>for a while, but he's not in our group any more.  We have no tech
>writers assigned to us, except for to pretty-up what little we have
>for releases.
>
>At the moment, I'm just too busy to work on the documentation.  If you
>want more docs, write them and send them in!

Actually Pierre Humblet has also contributed much to the documentation.
In fact, he's taken the documentation through a rewrite, recently.

DJ does have the ultimate responsibility for documentation, though,
just like Geoff did before.

>> I have tried to use the search feature to search the past mails, but
>> their search engine is broke due to a mount problem it looks like.
>
>I've got a search engine at http://www.delorie.com/archives/ for
>messages since we moved to sourceware, which was quite recent.  Your
>best bet at the moment is to ask on the list, like you did.

As I stated recently on the list (not that anyone can read this since the
search engine is broken), we're having problems with the archives due
to the recent mailing list software changeover.  Hopefully this will be
fixed soon but we have to rely on the Cygnus system administrators for this
and they're quite busy.

>>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
>> /tmp not show up when I
>>          do  a ls -la / ?
>
>Create a /tmp directory on your / drive and it will.  Unix requires
>this also.  It's usually a good idea to create such directories.

And, this is why mount warns you when you attempt to do a 
'mount d:/temp /tmp' if /tmp doesn't exist.

cgf

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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Pierre A. Humblet]

At 03:10 PM 2/24/99 -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:
>
>> Actually Pierre Humblet has also contributed much to the documentation.
>> In fact, he's taken the documentation through a rewrite, recently.
>
>Yes, of course, sorry Pierre.  He's been quite helpful.  He worked
>with Geoff, so I forgot.  Again, sorry Pierre.

No problem. It's true that a lot more could be done but question 1 below happens to be explained in the Users' Guide...

>    There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>    1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
>  /tmp not show up when I

About the second question, I didn't check Linux but in this instance Cygwin behaves exactly as a Sun, which is rather good! (DJ has already given a fix)

>    2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
>            alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>        when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                    bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                    bash: alias: '=' not found

Finally, a recent message "Subject: setmode (long)" also complains about behavior that is documented in the Users' Guide! In that case it's true that the behavior has changed over time and that reading the archives may be misleading.

pierre


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Heinz-Jürgen Oertel]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2437 bytes --]

Timothy Reaves schrieb:
> 
>      I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
> meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There is
> much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!
> 
>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
> slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
> search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
> problem it looks like.
> 
>     There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?
>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>         when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                     bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                     bash: alias: '=' not found
> 
>     Any ideas?.
> 
from man bash (also available for cygwin):

alias [-p] [name[=value] ...]
              Alias with no  arguments  or  with  the  -p  option
              prints  the  list  of  aliases  in  the  form alias
              name=value on standard output.  When arguments  are
              supplied,  an  alias is defined for each name whose
              value is given.  A trailing space in  value  causes
              the  next word to be checked for alias substitution
              when the alias is expanded.  For each name  in  the
              argument  list  for which no value is supplied, the
              name and value of  the  alias  is  printed.   Alias
              returns  true  unless  a name is given for which no
              alias has been defined.


try:
alias dir='ls .....'


By the way,  i think the Cygwin is a great project and people working on
it
have done a great job. Of course some documentation is missing
but most of things can be understood using common LINUX/UNIX docs.
-- 
with best regards / mit freundlichen Grüßen

  Heinz-Jürgen Oertel

==========================================
Heinz-Juergen Oertel
port GmbH            phone +49 3493 743-10
Antonienstr. 3       fax   +49 3493 743-15
D-06749 Bitterfeld   mailto:service@port.de
Germany              http://www.port.de
==========================================

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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Corinna Vinschen]

Paul Sokolovsky wrote:
> [...]
>     Something like that I had, little more worse, though.
> I solved it globally (after consulting to maillist and being told
> those are 'features' of cygwin) - unmount all except root.
> Replace in registry '/' mount point from drive where
> windows installed to drive where cygwin itself installed (it's another
> cygwin feature). Make /tmp on that drive. Keep youself within that
> drive. Use //cygdrive/ syntax to access other drives (search list
> archive for more info). Forget forever about one of the MOST NICE
> and USEFUL features of cygwin.

Why do you tell this?

Nothing of this, what you are telling is really necessary! I'm using cygwin
mount points on many computers with many windows partitions and it works fine!
You are not obliged to use REGEDIT, to change the root mount! Try
	umount /
	mount [-bf] X: /
and you will see: This works, too!
So, too, it's definitly unnecessary, to use a //cygdrive style syntax!
Many nice features of cygwin are working as expected, some others have errors
in it, but less than windows itself! Some code also workarounds windows shit!

As a result, IMHO, your last sentence is a insolence!

Corinna


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[DJ Delorie]

> Actually Pierre Humblet has also contributed much to the documentation.
> In fact, he's taken the documentation through a rewrite, recently.

Yes, of course, sorry Pierre.  He's been quite helpful.  He worked
with Geoff, so I forgot.  Again, sorry Pierre.

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Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Timothy Reaves]

     I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There is
much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!

    Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
problem it looks like.

    There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
    1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
/tmp not show up when I
         do  a ls -la / ?
    2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
            alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
        when I start bash, I get the following errors:
                    bash: alias: 'dir' not found
                    bash: alias: '=' not found

    Any ideas?.




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RE: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Timothy Reaves]

WOW!

First, it's nice to know that this list is populated by so many thin
skinned jerks that don't mind typing off a quick e-mail who's contents
they'd NEVER say to someone's face!

I have no problem helping write documentation.  First I need to learn
the product.  This would be facilitated by easier access to the mailing
list except my mail server refuses to let me connect to the cygwin one.
Something about a known source of spam or some such.  Never seen that
before.

As I can not actually respond the e-mail vie the 'reply' function, I'll
try this.

Relating to what DJ Delorie said:  thanks for the note.  Having only one
person handling documentation for a product this size must really suck!
I'll try and compile a list of stuff I've found to be inaccurate and
forward them.  Until then, is there anything in particular you could use
some help with?

As two the two problems I mentioned, yes, the alias was fixed by
removing the spaces.  Several people mentioned the mount issue, though I
didn't understand fully their intent.  If I do a 'mount' I can see where
d:\temp is mounted to /tmp.  I can cd to /tmp. But /tmp does not show up
in a ls -la.

So I tried a few of the suggestions.  I umounted /tmp, did a mkdir /tmp,
mount d:\temp /tmp, then a ls -la /.  I got an error ls: /tmp: no such
file or directory.  I don't understand this either.  I did not do a ls
-la /tmp.  Just /.  So I umounted /tmp, deleted /tmp, and now nothing
relating to /tmp works.  I can no longer even do a mkdir /tmp as I get
the error - mkdir: cannot make directory '/tmp': No such file or
directory.

Under unix this never would have been an issue, so apparently I just
don't understand the port.  Can someone point out where I screwed up?




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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Corinna Vinschen]

Paul Sokolovsky wrote:
> [...]
>     Something like that I had, little more worse, though.
> I solved it globally (after consulting to maillist and being told
> those are 'features' of cygwin) - unmount all except root.
> Replace in registry '/' mount point from drive where
> windows installed to drive where cygwin itself installed (it's another
> cygwin feature). Make /tmp on that drive. Keep youself within that
> drive. Use //cygdrive/ syntax to access other drives (search list
> archive for more info). Forget forever about one of the MOST NICE
> and USEFUL features of cygwin.

Why do you tell this?

Nothing of this, what you are telling is really necessary! I'm using cygwin
mount points on many computers with many windows partitions and it works fine!
You are not obliged to use REGEDIT, to change the root mount! Try
	umount /
	mount [-bf] X: /
and you will see: This works, too!
So, too, it's definitly unnecessary, to use a //cygdrive style syntax!
Many nice features of cygwin are working as expected, some others have errors
in it, but less than windows itself! Some code also workarounds windows shit!

As a result, IMHO, your last sentence is a insolence!

Corinna


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Earnie Boyd]

---Timothy Reaves <treaves@y11a165.neo.rr.com> wrote:
>
>      I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
> meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There
is
> much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!
> 
>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product,
or
> slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
> search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
> problem it looks like.
> 
>     There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?

The filesystem emulation is broken on this point.  Hopefully it will
be fixed by the next release.

Did you try it with a mount point created at /?  
I.E.: mkdir /tmp; mount d:\\temp /tmp

Although this will change the `ls -la /' to display the /tmp if you
`ls -la tmp' it will display the mount point directory which will be
empty instead of the mounted directory.

>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from
linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>         when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                     bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                     bash: alias: '=' not found
> 

Remove the spaces.  bash requires: alias dir='ls -la --color=yes'

==
-                        \\||//
-------------------o0O0--Earnie--0O0o-------------------
--                earnie_boyd@yahoo.com               --
-- http://www.freeyellow.com/members5/gw32/index.html --
----------------------ooo0O--O0ooo----------------------

PS: Newbie's, you should visit my page.
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Heinz-Jürgen Oertel]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2436 bytes --]

Timothy Reaves schrieb:
> 
>      I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
> meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There is
> much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!
> 
>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
> slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
> search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
> problem it looks like.
> 
>     There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?
>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>         when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                     bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                     bash: alias: '=' not found
> 
>     Any ideas?.
> 
from man bash (also available for cygwin):

alias [-p] [name[=value] ...]
              Alias with no  arguments  or  with  the  -p  option
              prints  the  list  of  aliases  in  the  form alias
              name=value on standard output.  When arguments  are
              supplied,  an  alias is defined for each name whose
              value is given.  A trailing space in  value  causes
              the  next word to be checked for alias substitution
              when the alias is expanded.  For each name  in  the
              argument  list  for which no value is supplied, the
              name and value of  the  alias  is  printed.   Alias
              returns  true  unless  a name is given for which no
              alias has been defined.


try:
alias dir='ls .....'


By the way,  i think the Cygwin is a great project and people working on
it
have done a great job. Of course some documentation is missing
but most of things can be understood using common LINUX/UNIX docs.
-- 
with best regards / mit freundlichen Grüßen

  Heinz-Jürgen Oertel

==========================================
Heinz-Juergen Oertel
port GmbH            phone +49 3493 743-10
Antonienstr. 3       fax   +49 3493 743-15
D-06749 Bitterfeld   mailto:service@port.de
Germany              http://www.port.de
==========================================

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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Pierre A. Humblet]

At 03:10 PM 2/24/99 -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:
>
>> Actually Pierre Humblet has also contributed much to the documentation.
>> In fact, he's taken the documentation through a rewrite, recently.
>
>Yes, of course, sorry Pierre.  He's been quite helpful.  He worked
>with Geoff, so I forgot.  Again, sorry Pierre.

No problem. It's true that a lot more could be done but question 1 below happens to be explained in the Users' Guide...

>    There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
>    1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
>  /tmp not show up when I

About the second question, I didn't check Linux but in this instance Cygwin behaves exactly as a Sun, which is rather good! (DJ has already given a fix)

>    2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
>            alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
>        when I start bash, I get the following errors:
>                    bash: alias: 'dir' not found
>                    bash: alias: '=' not found

Finally, a recent message "Subject: setmode (long)" also complains about behavior that is documented in the Users' Guide! In that case it's true that the behavior has changed over time and that reading the archives may be misleading.

pierre


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[DJ Delorie]

> First, it's nice to know that this list is populated by so many thin
> skinned jerks that don't mind typing off a quick e-mail who's contents
> they'd NEVER say to someone's face!

I hope you're not referring to me, because I'm pretty thick skinned
and I *would* say it to your face.  However, if you heard it
face-to-face you'd realize that I'm not saying what I say to be a
jerk, but that I mean well and I want to bring up issues so that they
can be *resolved*, not rubbed in peoples noses.  Some things get lost
in email, so I usually assume the best of people.

> I have no problem helping write documentation.  First I need to learn
> the product.  This would be facilitated by easier access to the mailing
> list except my mail server refuses to let me connect to the cygwin one.
> Something about a known source of spam or some such.  Never seen that
> before.

Mail me one of the bounces (try postmaster@delorie.com if my server
bounces you too) and I'll see if I can point out what your site needs
to do to get off the spam filters.

> As I can not actually respond the e-mail vie the 'reply' function,

Why not?

> Relating to what DJ Delorie said:  thanks for the note.  Having only one
> person handling documentation for a product this size must really suck!

Yup.  Having only two cygnus developers (part time, at that) sucks
too, but we make do with what we've got.

> I'll try and compile a list of stuff I've found to be inaccurate and
> forward them.  Until then, is there anything in particular you could use
> some help with?

No, nothing in particular.  We try to fix the things *we* know about,
at least :-)

> As to the two problems I mentioned, yes, the alias was fixed by
> removing the spaces.

Great!

> Several people mentioned the mount issue, though I
> didn't understand fully their intent.  If I do a 'mount' I can see where
> d:\temp is mounted to /tmp.  I can cd to /tmp. But /tmp does not show up
> in a ls -la.

Exit from bash, so that you're back in command.com (or cmd.exe).
*Now* make the directory, so that it's a real windows-type directory.
(i.e: "C:\> mkdir \tmp").  Now go back into bash.  The presence of a
real directory under the cygwin mount point makes some of the cygwin
functions behave better, like opendir (on which ls is based).

> Under unix this never would have been an issue, so apparently I just
> don't understand the port.  Can someone point out where I screwed up?

Under unix, the mount would have *failed* without the underlying mount
point directory.  Cygwin allows you to mount things without the
underlying directory, a point which has been argued both ways in the
past, which has some benefits and, as you see, some problems.

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RE: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Timothy Reaves]

WOW!

First, it's nice to know that this list is populated by so many thin
skinned jerks that don't mind typing off a quick e-mail who's contents
they'd NEVER say to someone's face!

I have no problem helping write documentation.  First I need to learn
the product.  This would be facilitated by easier access to the mailing
list except my mail server refuses to let me connect to the cygwin one.
Something about a known source of spam or some such.  Never seen that
before.

As I can not actually respond the e-mail vie the 'reply' function, I'll
try this.

Relating to what DJ Delorie said:  thanks for the note.  Having only one
person handling documentation for a product this size must really suck!
I'll try and compile a list of stuff I've found to be inaccurate and
forward them.  Until then, is there anything in particular you could use
some help with?

As two the two problems I mentioned, yes, the alias was fixed by
removing the spaces.  Several people mentioned the mount issue, though I
didn't understand fully their intent.  If I do a 'mount' I can see where
d:\temp is mounted to /tmp.  I can cd to /tmp. But /tmp does not show up
in a ls -la.

So I tried a few of the suggestions.  I umounted /tmp, did a mkdir /tmp,
mount d:\temp /tmp, then a ls -la /.  I got an error ls: /tmp: no such
file or directory.  I don't understand this either.  I did not do a ls
-la /tmp.  Just /.  So I umounted /tmp, deleted /tmp, and now nothing
relating to /tmp works.  I can no longer even do a mkdir /tmp as I get
the error - mkdir: cannot make directory '/tmp': No such file or
directory.

Under unix this never would have been an issue, so apparently I just
don't understand the port.  Can someone point out where I screwed up?




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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[DJ Delorie]

> Actually Pierre Humblet has also contributed much to the documentation.
> In fact, he's taken the documentation through a rewrite, recently.

Yes, of course, sorry Pierre.  He's been quite helpful.  He worked
with Geoff, so I forgot.  Again, sorry Pierre.

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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, Feb 24, 1999 at 02:33:44PM -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:
>>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
>> slow documentation people?
>
>The only one writing documentation at the moment is ME.  Geoff helped
>for a while, but he's not in our group any more.  We have no tech
>writers assigned to us, except for to pretty-up what little we have
>for releases.
>
>At the moment, I'm just too busy to work on the documentation.  If you
>want more docs, write them and send them in!

Actually Pierre Humblet has also contributed much to the documentation.
In fact, he's taken the documentation through a rewrite, recently.

DJ does have the ultimate responsibility for documentation, though,
just like Geoff did before.

>> I have tried to use the search feature to search the past mails, but
>> their search engine is broke due to a mount problem it looks like.
>
>I've got a search engine at http://www.delorie.com/archives/ for
>messages since we moved to sourceware, which was quite recent.  Your
>best bet at the moment is to ask on the list, like you did.

As I stated recently on the list (not that anyone can read this since the
search engine is broken), we're having problems with the archives due
to the recent mailing list software changeover.  Hopefully this will be
fixed soon but we have to rely on the Cygnus system administrators for this
and they're quite busy.

>>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
>> /tmp not show up when I
>>          do  a ls -la / ?
>
>Create a /tmp directory on your / drive and it will.  Unix requires
>this also.  It's usually a good idea to create such directories.

And, this is why mount warns you when you attempt to do a 
'mount d:/temp /tmp' if /tmp doesn't exist.

cgf

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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Paul Kinnucan]

At 02:12 PM 2/24/99 -0500, Timothy Reaves wrote:
>     I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
>meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There is

I'm sure the Cygnus developers who have given so freely of their time
to our benefit would be delighted if you volunteered
to help upgrade the documentation.

- Paul


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Re: Total lack of accurate documentation!

[DJ Delorie]

> Sad.  There is much missing and a lot of what is there is outright
> wrong!

Note that in some cases, the documentation is right but the sources
are buggy.  Saying that most of it is wrong is not helpful.  Please be
specific about what parts are wrong and why you think they're wrong,
or we'll never be able to fix them.

>     Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
> slow documentation people?

The only one writing documentation at the moment is ME.  Geoff helped
for a while, but he's not in our group any more.  We have no tech
writers assigned to us, except for to pretty-up what little we have
for releases.

At the moment, I'm just too busy to work on the documentation.  If you
want more docs, write them and send them in!

> I have tried to use the search feature to search the past mails, but
> their search engine is broke due to a mount problem it looks like.

I've got a search engine at http://www.delorie.com/archives/ for
messages since we moved to sourceware, which was quite recent.  Your
best bet at the moment is to ask on the list, like you did.

>     1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
> /tmp not show up when I
>          do  a ls -la / ?

Create a /tmp directory on your / drive and it will.  Unix requires
this also.  It's usually a good idea to create such directories.

>     2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
>             alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'

alias dir='ls -la --color=yet'

Don't type the spaces around the '='

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Total lack of accurate documentation!

[Timothy Reaves]

     I downloaded this product, and initially said WOW.  That changesd
meaning as I began to look around at the documentation.  Sad.  There is
much missing and a lot of what is there is outright wrong!

    Does anyone know if this is due to rapid changes in the product, or
slow documentation people?  I have tried to use the search feature to
search the past mails, but their search engine is broke due to a mount
problem it looks like.

    There are two things I'd like to know off the bat:
    1) If I have /tmp mounted on d:\temp, and can do cd /tmp, why does
/tmp not show up when I
         do  a ls -la / ?
    2) I have the following line in my .bashrc file, copied from linux.
            alias dir = 'ls -la --color=yes'
        when I start bash, I get the following errors:
                    bash: alias: 'dir' not found
                    bash: alias: '=' not found

    Any ideas?.




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