Mail Archives: cygwin-developers/1999/11/19/20:19:44
On Fri, Nov 19, 1999 at 04:47:15PM -0600, Mumit Khan wrote:
>Geoffrey Noer <noer AT cygnus DOT com> writes:
>>
>> This doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Somewhat hidden cleverness
>> is really dangerous. Could better documentation possibly accomplish
>> the same goals? Dunno, but I would think that would be preferable.
>
>I'm not sure what you mean adding /bin to the PATH automagically. I,
>as a user, don't care as long as my PATH does not change after the
>shell evaluates my startup files (.profile, etc). If you can add /bin
>as the first element to the PATH variable before it gets to my startup
>file, it sounds like a good idea.
I was thinking of 1) scanning the user's path, looking for something
that looks like it's a cygwin /bin, putting it at the beginning if found,
or 2) if 1) fails try to find /bin using various heuristics and add
it to the beginning of the path.
>I'm in favor of the Unix'y login approach -- setup a default bare
>environment, and then let the actual user startup take care of the
>rest. This bare environment setup process can put /bin, however it is
>found, before the rest of the User's existing PATH (done via Windows/DOS);
>then .bashrc/.profile does the rest.
>
>I'd think /bin should be easy to find. Have the installer add a registry
>entry that says where it was installed (it's already there in a way), and
>use that to find /bin.
I was thinking of suggesting this but I was foresaw the plaintive wails
when a user makes a "minor change" of moving his /bin after setup and
finds that his cygwin utilities no longer work.
cgf
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