Re: [Msys2-users] Some msys2 questions

[Ray D. <min...@gm...>]

On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Ray Donnelly <min...@gm...> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Adrian Pop <fk...@gm...> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have some questions about msys2 which maybe some of you can answer:
>>
>> 1. how can I bundle msys2 with another software?
>
> Bundle it, make an installer if you like, we use our own package of Qt
> Installer Framework. I've provided a link to this later as it ties in
> with your subsequent questions.
>
>> how do you keep track of the msys2 root directory?
>
> It's calculated relatively from where the msys-2.0.dll is run from
> (the running msys-2.0.dll knows its own location as all Windows DLLs
> and executables do).
>
>> do you have some registry setting set by the installer?
>
> The registry does contain a key for this, but it's only of use for
> uninstallation. MSYS2 is fully relocatable. Of course if you relocate
> it then uninstallation won't work. We also provide tarballs for people
> who don't like installers or the Windows registry.
>
>> If you move the msys directory someplace else than
>> where you originally installed it, how can you tell
>> it that its root directory changed?
>
> The msys-2.0.dll knows where it is located, everything is calculated
> relative to that, either at install (by pacman) time (via post install
> scripts) or at runtime via relative path calculations.

I should qualify some of this. When I said earlier that "MSYS2 is
fully relocatable", that's not strictly true. Things (only mingw-w64
software, not msys2 software) that were relocated at install (by
pacman post install scripts) sometimes are not relocatable (absolute
paths got baked in during that process), whereas things that calculate
the relative paths at runtime will relocate properly when moved. We
prefer and implement runtime relocation when possible.

>
>>
>> 2. can you install msys2 packages via pacman in another directory?
>> i would like to have a very small core package of msys2 with
>> mingw32 and mingw64 compilers and big packages like qt5 and
>> so on installed in some other directory. Something like:
>> Core:
>> X:/msys
>> X:/msys/mingw32
>> X:/msys/mingw64
>> Optional: big packages like qt5, openscenegraph, etc
>> X:/opt/mingw32
>> X:/opt/mingw64
>> The Core system I would like to bundle with other software
>> for distribution and the additional Optional package would
>> only be used by developers.
>
> No, Pacman handles only complete system management. Packages assume
> the relative layout from themselves to other packages and do not work
> if these assumptions are broken. In certain cases you might get away
> with it though. pacman --root can be used to install stuff elsewhere
> but it's more complicated than that (and as I say, not something that
> works in the general case) so I'm not going to detail that here. If
> you want to see an example of this in action look into:
>
> https://github.com/Alexpux/MSYS2-packages/blob/master/msys2-installer/make-msys2-installer
>
> Overall, I recommend you just use and educate people to use pacman as
> it is intended. Developers can install Qt, non-developers can not
> install Qt.
>
>>
>> 3. can one remove the pacman cache?
>> can this directory:
>> msys/var/cache/pacman/pkg
>> be cleaned out without impacting pacman?
>
> Yes. Fine. I'd remove the contents of the directory, but actually if
> you remove the directory then pacman will probably just recreate it
> next time.
>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Adrian Pop/
>>
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