On Nov 12, 2014, at 3:43 PM, Andrew DeFaria <and...@defaria.com> wrote:
> On 11/12/2014 2:16 PM, Warren Young wrote: >>> What local changes/installations get lost? >> >> Currently, if you nuke a default installation into c:\cygwin, you lose >> /home, /etc, /var and /usr/local, all of which contain user files and/or >> local system configuration. > > Technically user files can exist anywhere in the file system All the more reason to move to a world where it’s possible to start securing /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/share… so that only setup.exe can write to it. I’m not advocating that step so early, but maybe if this breakup does happen, a few years later setup.exe can start applying some strong ACLs to files it writes. >> Apparently those of us who have been using Cygwin for years and just need to >> do a clean reinstall for some reason are expected to know enough not to take >> step 4 too literally. > > I've been using Cygwin since 2003 (does that qualify me?) and have never feel > the need to reinstall. While doing the “size of Cygwin” research, I managed to stuff up my installation badly enough to need a reinstall a few times. :) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21230657/ I’m not sure I’ve had to reinstall more often than for PC upgrades and such previously. This proposed change should also allow Windows 8+’s File History feature to back up Cygwin user files. It only backs up files that are in places normal users *should* be writing files. http://www.howtogeek.com/74623/ (File History is more or less Microsoft’s clone of Apple’s wonderful Time Machine feature. And yes, I’m aware that not everyone thinks the feature is wonderful.) -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
