Cygwin upgrade hassles

["Paul Bailey" <pmbailey at senet dot com dot au>]

Hi.

I'm a Win98 user (and unfamiliar with Unix).  I wanted to download a free C
compiler, so I went to gnu.org, and clicked the links in the GCC Webpages.
Eventually I found myself at cygnus.com.  Hey, what's this?  A C compiler,
C++ compiler and Unix emulation all in one?  Hey, cool.  What a bargain!

I downloaded the Cygwin B20 binary and subsequently installed it.  No
problems.  Working through the user guide and FAQ, I set up the directory
structure as described.  No problems.  Time to upgrade to B20.1 as per the
frequent suggestions throughout the Web site.

Problems!

The upgrade instructions read:

"...download the file
`ftp://go.cygnus.com/pub/sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/cygwin-b20/cygwin1-20.
1.dll.bz2',"

OK.  Done.

"decompress it with bunzip2,"

OK.  Done.

"and then install the dll, replacing the file
cygwin-b20/H-i586-cygwin32/bin/cygwin1.dll in your original installation of
20.0."

This is where I'm running into problems.  I copied the .dll into the
directory, and ran Cygnus.  No problems.  I exited Cygnus and killed off
cygwin1.dll, then started Cygnus again.  Error!  Woudln't run.  It required
the cygwin1.dll to run, but the instructions said to replace it!  How do I
do that?

I don't get it.  What's the process to "install the dll", and how do I
replace cygwin1.dll with that file?  None of this is very clear to me.
(Unix:  it's Latin for "through a glass, darkly".)

Additionally, the instructions further state:

"To install the full 20.1 release, you will need to download the correct
installer from scratch."

Umm ... what's the "correct" installer?  Didn't I just download that?
There's no filename mentioned here.  And there's no file in the FTP file
list with anything like "correct" or "install" in its name.  A clue, anyone?
(Unix:  it's Latin for "let's play detective".)

Yeah, umm, I think I'm lost here!  (Unix:  it's Latin for "I need a map
about now".)

So I kept reading and trying to ignore my "lost-ness".  I found this:

"We have diff files on the ftp site that can be used to upgrade the original
B20.0 sources."

OK, they're listed amongst the files on the FTP server.  Are these one of
the "correct installers" or what?  I'm not sure if they're source code
patches, or if they upgrade the binary directly.  If it's the source code,
that means I'll also have to download Cygnus B20.0 source code -- I only got
the binary -- and then compile it.  Never having done that before (hey,
Windows, y'know?), I don't really know what that procedure entails.

If I'd had Unix on my machine previously and had compiled some small apps
from source code before, I might feel more comfortable tackling this.  Well,
at least I'd know what I was supposed to do!  But the first thing I'm
instructed to do after installing Cygwin -- which gives me Unix on my
machine, for all purposes -- is to download the source and compile the whole
thing operating system from scratch!  (Unix:  it's Latin for "guesswork".)

Does anyone out there have the patience to help me out here?  It's been over
*three days* of tackling this upgrade process, and I'm still ... confounded.



Regards,


Paul Bailey.





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