Can't configure setup.exe from CVS (and a plea for setup.exe alternative)

Sat Dec 18 03:18:00 GMT 2004

> > Anyone know of a suitable, free setup-like utility that could be 
> > pressed into service for use with cygwin?
> http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
> Fergus 
>
I second that emotion. InnoSetup absolutely rocks.
What I suspect you're unlikely to find in any of these however is piecemeal
installation of stuff over the network. And I'd wager any amount not to
exceed 10ドル that none will ever have any sort of "Current/Prev/Experimental"
functionality. Dependencies, I don't know.
How about this notion: Every package has its own installer, e.g.
CygwinSetup.exe, BashSetup.exe, GCCSetup.exe, BinutilsSetup.exe, Perl...
Well, you get the idea. I've gotten rather expert at InnoSetup
"metascripting" and could probably write a short perl script to
automatically build these from the existing packages.
But what to do about dependencies? Off the top of my head:
1. When A requires B and B isn't installed, running Asetup.exe croaks with
"You must install B first!". Bad.
2. When A requires B, Asetup.exe contains Bsetup.exe and installs it
automatically. Huge files in some cases, probably conflicts, ick.
3. If the setup builder does support install-on-demand over the network,
problem probably solved.
Pros:
- Versioning becomes less of an issue. Every CygwinSetup-1.5.xxxx.exe can
be kept around forever if somebody wanted to (actually that's probably a
"con" in the long run....). Actual exe/dll versioning gets handled by the
installer.
- Nobody gets confused. InnoSetup installers are as standard as they come.
Cons:
- "I just installed all 2MB of CygwinSetup-1.xxx.exe, why can't I compile
anything?!?!?".
- Tons of xxxSetup.exe's floating around, with no "picker". Maybe that's
acceptable though, if a web page(s) get autogenerated with links to the exe
and the description.
Just a notion, let 'er rip. ;-)
-- 
Gary R. Van Sickle
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