Re: [Mingw-msys] Vista users: please test the new MSYS snapshot

[Johannes S. <Joh...@gm...>]

Hi,

On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Keith Marshall wrote:

> On Fri, 2007-12-07 at 01:03 +0000, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Keith Marshall wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wednesday 05 December 2007 02:04, Cesar Strauss wrote:
> > > > I can't see anything obviously wrong with your setup, other than 
> > > > rxvt doesn't work...
> > > 
> > > RXVT has been a `Right Royal Pain in the Posterior', for as long as 
> > > I can remember.
> > 
> > IMHO it would be better to fix Rxvt
> 
> It is easy to express such an opinion, but are you volunteering to put 
> in the necessary effort to achieve that?  If `yes', then I look forward 
> to testing the fruits of your labour; if `no', then why do expect others 
> to expend such effort, when those who have tried in the past have come 
> to the conclusion that such an ideal may be unachievable?

In fact, once I breathe some air after having succeeded in compiling 
Subversion+Perl-Module in msysGit, that is my next target.

Don't hold your breath for it.

> > than to point to half-assed "solutions".
> 
> No one has done any such thing.

To propose Console2, admitting that it does not run on older Windows 
(which are way preferable to me, since I have lots of licenses for them 
that work, thanks to Microsoft's insistence on selling Windows with every 
computer, and they run way faster in virtualisers/emulators) is what 
qualifies as "half-assed" with this coder.

> There are two officially supported methods of running the MSYS shell:--
> 
> 1) In a native Woe32 console.  This is the only one of the two which is
>    truly robust; it has always been available, and is the default choice
>    for Cygwin, but not for MSYS.  In a recent poll, on this list, those
>    who bothered to respond were unanimous that it should also become the
>    default for MSYS.

I wasn't there; I would have opposed.

Even if we have to use cmd/command.exe with msysGit, since for example ssh 
password input or paging with "less" does not work properly in rxvt, the 
shortcomings of cmd/command are so annoying that I curse out loud in the 
general direction of Redmond almost every time I have to use it.

Think resizing the window (not that hard, everybody else seems to do it 
just fine). Think copy/pasting (you have to enable it manually! you have 
to _right_ click to finish the selection! You can forget about multi-line 
selections if the first line of what you want to select does not start in 
the first column).  Think scrolling back with a keyboard shortcut.

> 2) In an RXVT.  Currently the default, but has always been beset by
>    problems.  Earnie, who originally chose to make it the default, and
>    who did not vote in the poll, devoted a lot of effort in trying to
>    fix it, before eventually conceding defeat.

Yes, fighting with the Win32 API is more difficult than any 
adventure/first-person-shooter game I ever saw.  But never attribute to 
malice that which can be explained by incompetence.  After all, the same 
bunch still have the most virus- and bug-ridden OS out there, even after 
years of money heading their way.

BTW another solution to that console problem I will explore is using 
Xming.  A guy on #git told me that startup is almost instantaneous.  And 
it has all the advantages of X11, since it _is_ X11.

Ciao,
Dscho