From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: MS-Windows build using Posix configury Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 17:51:54 +0300 Message-ID: <831u93xbsl.fsf@gnu.org> References: <83d2tu49lu.fsf@gnu.org> <83zjweo5dh.fsf@gnu.org> <83sj25nym2.fsf@gnu.org> <837gjhnowi.fsf@gnu.org> <8338u4o39r.fsf@gnu.org> <83zjwbkmt2.fsf@gnu.org> <83wqrfkjvo.fsf@gnu.org> <838v3qebns.fsf@gnu.org> <83wqr9csah.fsf@gnu.org> <83wqr297da.fsf@gnu.org> <83txm34g6k.fsf@gnu.org> <83d2srt645.fsf@gnu.org> <87y5bfkmsz.fsf@yandex.ru> <85li7ba2i6.fsf@member.fsf.org> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1368975160 3871 80.91.229.3 (19 May 2013 14:52:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 14:52:40 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stephen Leake Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun May 19 16:52:38 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ue4yU-00047v-Kv for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 19 May 2013 16:52:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52409 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Ue4yU-0006MT-90 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 19 May 2013 10:52:38 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:53120) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Ue4yP-0006MJ-Pq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 19 May 2013 10:52:35 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Ue4yN-00088a-Ux for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 19 May 2013 10:52:33 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout20.012.net.il ([80.179.55.166]:49970) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Ue4yN-000882-GE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 19 May 2013 10:52:31 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout20.012.net.il by a-mtaout20.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0MN100L00VV89N00@a-mtaout20.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 19 May 2013 17:52:06 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout20.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0MN100KJWVYTSRC0@a-mtaout20.012.net.il>; Sun, 19 May 2013 17:52:06 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: <85li7ba2i6.fsf@member.fsf.org> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.166 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:159675 Archived-At: > From: Stephen Leake > Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 01:48:49 -0500 > > >> It is always preferable to use --prefix to configure Emacs for > >> some specific location of its installed tree; the default > >> /usr/local is not suitable for Windows. > > It would be best to say _why_ you think "/usr/local is not suitable for > Windows". Certainly Microsoft doesn't care about "/usr/local". It's funny how the most obvious things draw most of the questions. Here are 2 obvious reasons which I had in mind when I wrote that: . /usr/local does not specify a drive letter, so its location is ambiguous, as it depends on the current drive . Windows systems don't usually have /usr/local on _any_ drive, even if they have many MinGW packages installed, while one of the main goals of this build was to allow installing Emacs as part of a larger tree of ported software, not as a stand-alone package There's also a subtler problem, already mentioned in this thread, which might be known to fewer people: > Neither does MSYS or MinGW (if installed in the default places). You are wrong here: MSYS does care. It maps /usr/local to a subdirectory of its installation root. So if MSYS was installed in C:\MSYS, /usr/local will be actually C:\MSYS\local (note that the 'usr' part disappeared, because MSYS maps both / and /usr to the same place). Imagine the surprise of a newbie who says "make install" and then looks in vain for any "usr/local" directory anywhere, and doesn't find it! Since INSTALL.MSYS cannot be a treatise on MSYS or anything near it, I thought that it will be sufficient to say "not recommended", and rely on people to know about the 2 obvious reasons above, and just go with the recommendation. How naive of me... Also: > Cygwin might, if installed at c:/ (as I do). In that case, it would > appear your MSYS/MinGW Emacs build is a Cygwin build, which would be > confusing. Here, you actually answered your own question: there are Emacs users on Windows who do actually have Cygwin installed.