At 10:21 PM 8/2/2005, Jonathan Turkanis wrote: >Jonathan Turkanis wrote: >
<snip> >Here's what I've written so far; I'd like to know if there are any errors and >how it might be improved. I discuss Cygwin in two places, which I've labelled >"Installing Cygwin" and "Discussion of Cygwin and MinGW." > >Best Regards, >Jonathan Turkanis > >**** Installing Cygwin **** > <snip> >If you are short on disk space, or if you have a slow internet connection, you >can choose a smaller collection of packages. To select all of the development >tools, click once on the word Default next to the word Devel. Wait for the >word Default to change to Install, then press Finish. For an even smaller >collection of packages, expand the list of development packages by clicking on >the + icon next to the word Devel. Select the packages gcc-core, gcc-g++, and >make by clicking on the word Skip, opposite each package, causing it to change >to Install, and by checking the box under the column labeled Bin? Now press >Finish. Checking the "Bin?" box should not be necessary. It should be checked by default. <snip> >**** Discussion of Cygwin and MinGW **** <snip> >MinGW, which stands for "Minimalist GNU for Windows," is an attempt to provide >a minimal environment for porting GNU applications to Windows. While the full >Cygwin installation occupies several Gigabytes, the MinGW distribution is >relatively small. My only comment here is that Cygwin's default installation is also rather small. I actually haven't compared the MSYS installation with a Cygwin one, utility for utility, package for package, but I would guess that if one were to do so, the sizes would not be that different (though maybe you have already done this and know that there is some substantial difference.) My only reservation about your MinGW vs Cygwin comparison is that it may give a false impression to potential users that if they want a small installation with lots of tools, choose MinGW but if they want a large installation with even more tools, choose Cygwin. I've always viewed the difference between MinGW and Cygwin as one of direct Windows ports vs POSIX/Unix/Linux portability. MSYS muddies the water a little with it's suite of POSIX-like tools for building but it only muddies things because it's a fork of Cygwin to start with. -- Larry Hall http://www.rfk.com RFK Partners, Inc. (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office 838 Washington Street (508) 893-9889 - FAX Holliston, MA 01746 -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
