[darcs-devel] simplifying install of darcs/w32

[zooko at zooko.com]

Dear peter at hck.sk, will at glozer.net, darcs-devel:

I was just going over the darcs-on-win32 install, starting from here:

http://darcs.net/DarcsWiki/CategoryBinaries#head-3b8fd3f7da72746a5076ef5fced061003666d601

First of all, it appears to me that Peter's 

http://www.hck.sk/~peter/sftp_for_win32_darcs/darcs

is superceded by

http://abridgegame.org/repos/darcs/cygwin-wrapper.bash

so I guess he might as well remove it from his ftp site.


Secondly, I wonder if we could provide a single package containing all of 
those executables, appropriately renamed, so that the install instructions 
could shrink from their current eight steps down to three steps.

Current instructions:

"""
The basics:
 * Download darcs.exe from http://glozer.net/darcs/
 * (This step is required only if you are not using cygwin.) Add the directory 
   where you stored the executables at the beginning of your path.

To enable access of remote repositories over ssh:
 * Download pagent.exe, puttygen.exe, plink.exe, and pscp.exe from 
   http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
 * Download sftp.zip from http://www.hck.sk/~peter/sftp_for_win32_darcs/
 * Put darcs.exe, plink.exe, pscp.exe, sftp.zip, pagent.exe, and puttygen.exe 
   in an empty directory.
 * Rename plink.exe to ssh.exe and pscp.exe to scp.exe; uncompress sftp.zip. 
   Ensure that all these .exe files, including the "sftp.exe" that results 
   from uncompressing sftp.zip, have permissions that allow you to execute 
   them. If you are using cygwin, you can use "chmod ugo+x FILENAME" to enable 
   execute permissions for each file.
 * Set up passwordless ssh login as described on this page:
   http://www.tartarus.org/~simon/puttydoc/Chapter8.html#C8

If using cygwin:
 * Download cygwin-wrapper.bash, a cygwin bash script; put it in 
   /usr/local/bin (directory as seen by cygwin), rename it to "darcs", and 
   modify the path definition at its beginning so that it includes the 
   directory where you stored the executables.
"""


Proposed new instructions:

"""
The basics:
 * Download and unzip darcs.zip from http://glozer.net/darcs/.
 * (This step is required only if you are not using cygwin.) Add the directory 
   where you stored the executables at the beginning of your path.

To enable access of remote repositories over ssh:
 * Set up passwordless ssh login as described on this page:
   http://www.tartarus.org/~simon/puttydoc/Chapter8.html#C8

If using cygwin:
 * Download cygwin-wrapper.bash, a cygwin bash script; put it in 
   /usr/local/bin (directory as seen by cygwin), rename it to "darcs", and 
   modify the path definition at its beginning so that it includes the 
   directory where you stored the executables.  Ensure that all these files 
   have permissions that allow you to execute them, such as by executing 
   "chmod ugo+x FILENAME" to enable execute permissions for each file.
"""

Regards,

Zooko