Re: Windows support

From: Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 26, 2007, 16:11 UTC
Message-ID: <fcaeb9bf0707260911y4091b525kc6b89beb82ec7dc7@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0707261638100.14781@racer.site>

On 7/26/07, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

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> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 26 Jul 2007, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
>
> > I make MinGW busybox part of git for some reasons:
> >
> > - Making a full MinGW busybox would take lots of time. I don't need
> > busybox for Windows. What I need is a shell and enough POSIX utilities
> > to run git shell scripts without any dependencies. Windows users
> > (including myself when I have to use Windows) hate dependencies.
>
> I think that if you succeed to compile ash on MinGW, the rest is easy.

No it's not. With a couple of ifdefs you can compile it fine. Then there goes fork(), fcntl(F_DUPFD), /dev/*, job/signal handling... Fortunately Git does not use lots of features. It only needs /dev/null (and /dev/zero for tests), SIGEXIT and no job usage.. That cuts down the effort porting ash.

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> > - I don't want MinGW busybox to be used outside of git (if it is
> > installed separated from git), there are cygwin and msys already. I
> > don't want to compete them. And I don't like conflicts (not sure
> > though) because you have multiple UNIX emulations on the same system.
>
> But you'd be my hero.

Can't say I don't love to ;-) It's just that I don't have enough time. Once project "busybox for Windows" is born, people may scream for features. Even if they don't, there are still bunch of work because I have only ported a small number of tools. With Git as its sole customer, I can beg Git contributors to limit POSIX tools that they use.

But if someone steps up for the project, I'm all for it.

> Installing Cygwin is often overkill if all I need is just a tiny shell
> with just enough POSIX tools to run my scripts.

I see your point. Although you can install git and have git-box to play with (oh spread git! lolz) Just keep in mind you don't have all POSIX tools.

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> > - MinGW busybox (or gitbox as I call it now) utilizes compat/mingw.c
> > and other stuff like run-command.c... Making it separate (as source
> > code) duplicates code for nothing.
>
> It is not duplication.  It is forking.  Which is a good thing.

I still don't see why duplicating compat/*, git-compat-util.h, run-command.[ch]... and keeping fixing bugs in two places is a good thing.

-- 
Duy