- Cygwin Installation
- Downloading the Installation Binaries
- Installing Packages
- Conclusion
Downloading the Installation Binaries
Those questions weren’t too hard, and if the connection settings were accurate, you’ll see a list of mirror sites from which you can download the installation binaries. Choosing one can be difficult. Of course, you’ll want to choose one fairly close to or in your country. From there, you need to find a mirror that works. There is a setup.ini file you must bring down. Some mirrors ask for authentication. Others are in a maintenance cycle. You simply need to try and find the best candidate on the list by trial-and-error. And when it works, you get a display similar to Figure 2, which shows a list of basic packages. Simply clicking the Next button gets you a basic system with defaults in no time. You can then go back and add in other packages as needed. But that’s no fun. Let’s consider some of the better packages and why you might want them.
Figure 2 So many packages...so many options.
Let’s peer into each grouping, what is indicated by Admin, Archive, etc. Let’s make the dialog box larger by grabbing the side and widening it. To expand the grouping, click the plus character (+) next to each grouping name. To select a specific package within it, click the circle with arrows to the left of each package name. For example, one click on the arrowed circle next to Admin will trigger Install for all packages within the Admin grouping. Other options are Reinstall and Uninstall. I’ll list my recommendations for specific individual packages and why you might want to download them, now or maybe later.
And that’s how simple it is to add packages and package groups to your system. No rpm or configure and make commands needed. Stay with Linux, and you’ll know what I’m referring to. Want details? Review fdisk operations used to format your Linux system in my blog at http://www.informit.com/discussion/index.asp?postid=ab552b5e-3de6-412e-a0bb-6ed72a6bda9d.Cygwin keeps you from all of this...for now.
Be glad Cygwin makes installing a Linux sub-system so easy and, well, so safe. So let’s return to the installation. I prefer to make a small number of selections so as to do the install in stages. I find this accommodates my satellite broadband latency very well. If you find your installation abends in the middle of your installation, try my layered approach. (Don’t worry—this sophisticated application saves all your initial answers and installation wishes. You will have to recheck packages, though.)