Progress on current Cygwin and Terminator?

[jclerman0]

Has there been any progress on the post-1.7.7 Cygwin problems with
Terminator? Has the source of the problem been identified and if so,
was it ever fixed in Cygwin (or is a Cygwin developer on the case)?

I've been holding off on updating my Cygwin installations to avoid
breaking Terminator, but it'd be really nice to be able to return to a
simpler world, where I can simply install the latest Cygwin, then the
latest Terminator, and things Just Work.

Thanks,
--Jeff

[Martin Dorey]

As far as I'm aware, no-one's looked at it. Asking on the Cygwin list would probably just get you flamed or, if you really try :), Terminator or Java added to the BLODA at http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.using.html#faq.using.bloda.

Thanks,
--Jeff

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[Elliott Hughes]

i sometimes idly wonder how well we'd work compiled with gcj, removing
the need for a JVM. i imagine GNU Classpath's incompleteness would be
a problem, especially on Windows. (though i think they got to the
point where they could run Eclipse.)

--
Elliott Hughes - http://www.jessies.org/~enh/

[Chris Reece]

"A list of applications that interfere with the normal working of Cygwin by
intrusively injecting themselves in the system call chain."

Does Terminator intrusively inject itself into the system call chain?

[jclerman0]

OK; thanks. Do you (collectively) know where exactly in the code
things fail (which would at least give a test case to run periodically
to see if the problem has been fortuitously solved on the Cygwin
side), or is it more a matter of not-well-defined interference of
programs with each other or...?

Not much danger of me asking on the Cygwin list - I don't feel
qualified to do that because I don't think I can clearly define the
problem. "I have this program that doesn't work under Cygwin"
probably wouldn't help me get useful suggestions :).

Thanks,
--Jeff

On Nov 16, 5:40 pm, Martin Dorey <mdo...@bluearc.com> wrote:
> As far as I'm aware, no-one's looked at it.  Asking on the Cygwin list would probably just get you flamed or, if you really try :), Terminator or Java added to the BLODA athttp://cygwin.com/faq/faq.using.html#faq.using.bloda.

[Martin Dorey]

Every now and then, I upgrade, try to run Terminator, see that the Terminator window comes up but spews forth an interminable stream of bash fork crashes, then downgrade again using the fruitbat instructions recorded at http://software.jessies.org/salma-hayek/cygwin-problems.html.

I did that today, hence the delay, for the first time in months. It failed as previously. Due to a Subversion upgrade, I wasn't able to rebuild on the new version. (Obviously, I could have beaten my way through it... only to give myself a downgrade headache. Not enough time, sorry.)

[Kenneth Wolcott]

Hi Folks;

I'm one of the ones that initially reported the problem.

I am unable to shed any light on the problem nor the fact that it is
working fine for me for several months now and I have no idea how it
got fixed for me.

I haven't done a rebase or rebaseall in a long time nor have had the need to.

BTW, I download and install *everything* (well, not sources).

Terminator version 1640(3246)

$ uname.exe -a
CYGWIN_NT-5.1 KWOLCOTT-T61 1.7.9(0.237/5/3) 2011-03-29 10:10 i686 Cygwin

Ken

[Simonz]

On Nov 17, 12:40 pm, Martin Dorey <mdo...@bluearc.com> wrote:
> As far as I'm aware, no-one's looked at it.  Asking on the Cygwin list would probably just get you flamed or, if you really try :), Terminator or Java added to the BLODA athttp://cygwin.com/faq/faq.using.html#faq.using.bloda.
>
>

I reckon the best approach might be to isolate it right away from
Terminator and if possible even Java (although I suspect they won't
want to declare all of Java on the BLODA). If we can reduce it to the
simplest possible test case that involves only some fairly obvious C
code that they can look at then perhaps it will get a more positive
reception. Another angle is to check out the Cygwin source tree and
try and see the diffs between the time when we know it worked to when
we know it started failing.

Every now and then I resolve to actually try and do all this, but it's
hard to find a good block of time. I certainly won't for a month or
so but one day I will try if nobody else does. Terminator is
essential for my productivity and it's going to come to a head one
day ...

Cheers,

Simon

[han...@gmail.com]

I imagine this is now becoming a barrier to adoption for the Windows platform. Few people want to setup two cygwin trees just for one app, and the issue has been around long enough it makes Terminator look like just another FOSS app that isn't properly maintained.

just my 2¢

[Martin Dorey]

I'm one of the maintainers and I agree with your mail. Well, except for the implicit and perhaps unintentional implication that paid-for software is typically any better maintained. To answer the question from the Subject, even if it was a rhetorical one, I don't expect any progress on this issue. A more likely resolution is that the Windows build machine is retired and not replaced.

 

From: han...@gmail.com [mailto:han...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 04:48 PM
To: terminat...@googlegroups.com <terminat...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [terminator-users] Re: Progress on current Cygwin and Terminator?
 

I imagine this is now becoming a barrier to adoption for the Windows platform. Few people want to setup two cygwin trees just for one app, and the issue has been around long enough it makes Terminator look like just another FOSS app that isn't properly maintained.

just my 2¢

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[Elliott Hughes]

Are you implying that building from source on a 1.7 cygwin gives a Terminator that works on 1.7?

[Martin Dorey]

No, I am not implying that.  Indeed, building on 1.7, which I do, does not help, regardless of the precise version on which you build.  I am implying that I may not be able to host the Windows build in its current location by 2013.  If I lose the current build machine, then I doubt anyone will replace it.

 

---

[Martin Dorey]

> If you're talking about a lack of resources

 

Thanks for the kind offers but I wasn't.  I'm liking not having Windows in the house.

 

> do people have any suggestions

 

+list

 

---

From: han...@gmail.com [mailto:han...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 18:38
To: Martin Dorey
Subject: Re: [terminator-users] Re: Progress on current Cygwin and Terminator?

 

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Martin Dorey <mdo...@bluearc.com> wrote:
>> From: han...@gmail.com [mailto:han...@gmail.com]

>> I imagine this is now becoming a barrier to adoption for the Windows platform. Few people want to setup two cygwin trees just for one app, and the issue has been around long enough it makes Terminator look like just another FOSS app that isn't properly maintained.
>> just my 2¢

> I'm one of the maintainers and I agree with your mail. Well, except for the implicit and perhaps unintentional implication that paid-for software is typically any better maintained.

I certainly didn't mean to imply any criticism, much less comparison with payware, which I go to great lengths to avoid, not least because I'm basically an impoverished third-worlder ATM. And BTW I have much higher expectations from FOSS developers than payware ones that their apps will be regularly updated; that may be unrealistic and overly demanding, but I'm sure I'm not alone 8-)

While I'm at it, thank you so much for your valuable contributions to the community, Terminal is much better than the other emulators I've tried.

>To answer the question from the Subject, even if it was a rhetorical one, I don't expect any progress on this issue. A more likely resolution is that the Windows build machine is retired and not replaced.

> I may not be able to host the Windows build in its current location by 2013.  If I lose the current build machine, then I doubt anyone will replace it.

If the result of this is that Windows is no longer supported as a platform, that would be a disaster much worse than Terminator users having to maintain a second Cygwin tree. 8-)

If you're talking about a lack of resources, perhaps if the time comes, or even well ahead of time, put out a call for donations, if not cash perhaps a second-hand machine could be donated to the project. I've got one here I could send you, but you'd have to fund shipping from Bangkok, (or come pick it up, free sofa, cheap holiday!) probably not practical.


====================

And again while I'm here, for those situations where one can't use Terminal, do people have any suggestions for something that at least comes close for the windows environment (not necessarily cygwin, but allowing for that would be nice? 

 

I'm particularly interested in the "pretty-screen" aspects like configurable fonts and colorization support (especially Solarized), as some days I spend 10+ hours at the console. The multi-screen tab/grid aspect isn't so important since I use a screen mux most of the time anyway. Not too impressed with PuTTY but that's my runner-up so far.

A quick google found:

Terminals http://terminals.codeplex.com/
Kitty http://www.9bis.net/kitty/?page=Welcome&zone=en
Poderosa http://sourceforge.net/projects/poderosa/
Tera Term http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp/

 

Any feedback would be most welcome.

 

[Chris Reece]

Martin Dorey wrote:

>> If you're talking about a lack of resources
>
> Thanks for the kind offers but I wasn't. I'm liking not having Windows in the
> house.

That's what I thought you meant: when you stop wanting to have a windows
machine, Terminator has no windows developer.

Otherwise, I'm sure I could find a corner to stick something to do the builds,
but you sure as hell wouldn't want to attempt desktop interaction over
there-to-here latencies.

[Kenneth Wolcott]

The bizarre thing for me is that terminator works fine for me (one of
the original reporters of the problem) now, even after mintty is the
default Cygwin terminal emulator (very good one by the way). Perhaps
*fresh* installations do not have this problem while "updated"
instances of Cygwin+terminator do.

Ken

[Martin Dorey]

> Perhaps *fresh* installations do not have this problem

I got a mail the other day, somewhat oddly off-list, which looked like a report of the same problem from a fresh installation. I'll +list when I get round to replying.

If I had all the time and willing in the world, then I'd binary chop my way through the Cygwin changes between the versions where the problem was introduced. Even with the answer, it's likely that no solution would suggest itself. Still, last time something like this happened, I did that. It took literally all night (and I no longer have the machine (a 2000 era laptop) that made it "practical"). We got an unflamed post to the Cygwin list out of it. It was a waste of time as they'd just fixed it.

----- Original Message -----
From: Kenneth Wolcott [mailto:kenneth...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 07:34 PM
To: terminat...@googlegroups.com <terminat...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: han...@gmail.com <han...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [terminator-users] Re: Progress on current Cygwin and Terminator?

[Elliott Hughes]

(that was me and, yes, that was a fresh install, and i certainly saw
the same symptoms.)

--

[Keith Carangelo]

Hello,

I'm a long-time terminator user. I recently upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit. I installed Cygwin 1.7.9 and terminator and hoped for the best.

On my PC, if I immediately ssh into a remote box with terminator, it works perfectly. But I've noticed that it will hang fairly quickly if I use it locally as my cygwin shell terminal. I haven't had time to look into this further yet, but I thought it might be useful information.

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Thank you for your great software.

Keith Carangelo

http://www.kcaran.com

[hansbkk]

So ssh'ing to localhost may be a workaround?

[hansbkk]

Any chance that Terminator could be made to work within GnuWin32 rather than Cygwin?

Not pestering, just asking 8-)

I've recently become very impressed with that, as I need to get up to speed on "make" and didn't want to have anything depend on cygwin1.dll.

It's particularly easy to work with it via "GetGnuWin32" package manager script allowing for "portable mode" in the windows sense - running from an changing arbitrary path, e.g. USB drive.

I would be happy to help however I can, including providing remote access to a working W7 host when needed.

[Martin Dorey]

> Any chance that Terminator could be made to work within GnuWin32 rather than Cygwin?

 

No.  We depend on Posix terminal support and Posix signals, to name two facilities.

 

> I've recently become very impressed with that

 

I've only looked at the front page's:

 

Last update: 27-12-2010 10:15:32

 

And eg http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=gnuwin32-announce.

 

But it seems to have been moribund for the last year.

 

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From: terminat...@googlegroups.com [mailto:terminat...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of hansbkk

Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 09:32
To: terminat...@googlegroups.com

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[hansbkk]

Also just came across MinGW/MSYS, looks like a more complete/active project:

> It is also possible to cross-compile Windows applications with MinGW-GCC under POSIX systems. This means that developers do not need a Windows installation with MSYS to compile software that will run on Windows without Cygwin.

[Martin Dorey]

We use mingw in the build, notably for cygwin-launcher.exe.  Like GnuWin32, mingw doesn't provide a Posix runtime.  I think msys is the same.

 

---

From: terminat...@googlegroups.com [mailto:terminat...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of hansbkk

Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:03
To: terminat...@googlegroups.com
Cc: 'han...@gmail.com'

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[hansbkk]

On Friday, February 10, 2012 1:06:28 AM UTC+7, mad wrote:

We use mingw in the build, notably for cygwin-launcher.exe.  Like GnuWin32, mingw doesn't provide a Posix runtime.  I think msys is the same.

MSYS is an "add-on" to the MinGW environment, and I don't really know exactly how much of Posix it delivers.

Isn't it the case that Terminator's goal is to simply to deliver the console portion, rather than a full local shell environment?

"Posix runtime" unfortunately has such a general meaning, and of course Cygwin is the only full implementation for mswin, but is all of it really required just to run a terminal?

Or is it the networking/ssh part that needs Cygwin?

-------------------------------

> > MSYS is already set up with Posix dependencies intact, and is, in essence a Mingw development environment  which eliminates any and all dependencies on cygwin.dll while maintaining and supporting Unix-like shells.

> >   As Jose has noted, Mingw has no dependencies on cygwin.dll. MSYS is Mingw with shell capability (hence posix dependencies intact).

I know this is from a completely different problem domain, and have no idea if it's relevant, nor how important a full Posix environment is to Terminator.

> > MinGW is a build suite which produces native Win32 binary files. It can be coupled with MSYS which provides a posix build environment. The combination does not provide a posix runtime like cygwin does, so alterations were required but they turned out to be quite minor.

[Martin Dorey]

> Isn't it the case that Terminator's goal is to simply to deliver the console portion, rather than a full local shell environment?

Yes. It's not just the goal: that's all it does. The shell is a different program.

> is all of it really required just to run a terminal?

Implementing fork on Windows is especially hard. Even Posix terminal support is non-trivial.

> Or is it the networking/ssh part that needs Cygwin?

Terminator has no networking/ssh part. If you want a Windows terminal just for ssh, then you don't have to worry about applications running in your terminal - which need to be told about window size changes and the like. Then "all" you need is a built-in ssh client and, bingo, PuTTY.

 

From: hansbkk [mailto:han...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 08:51 PM
To: terminat...@googlegroups.com <terminat...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [terminator-users] Re: Progress on current Cygwin and Terminator?
 

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[hansbkk]

On Friday, February 10, 2012 12:19:35 PM UTC+7, mad wrote:

> Isn't it the case that Terminator's goal is to simply to deliver the console portion, rather than a full local shell environment?

Yes. It's not just the goal: that's all it does. The shell is a different program.

> is all of it really required just to run a terminal?

Implementing fork on Windows is especially hard. Even Posix terminal support is non-trivial.

> Or is it the networking/ssh part that needs Cygwin?

Terminator has no networking/ssh part. If you want a Windows terminal just for ssh, then you don't have to worry about applications running in your terminal - which need to be told about window size changes and the like. Then "all" you need is a built-in ssh client and, bingo, PuTTY.

Thanks for the clarification and sorry for my limited understanding - I'll google "fork" to find out what that's about, I assume you're not talking about cutlery 8-)

Personally I'm just looking for a nice-looking and highly functional environment for my CMD and MSYS-bash prompts on Windows 7, and so far Terminator's the ultimate hotness. If I have to maintain that one frozen Cygwin tree for another ten years, so be it 8-)   it's just disk space and sync time, no biggie. . .

Thanks again for your tremendous contributions to the community