Install Cygwin with KDE Desktop

This tutorial is mainly aimed at all those frustrated souls who made several futile attempts of installing Cygwin with KDE Desktop environment. I am one of those frustrated souls who finally succeeded in installing the same and would like to help my fellow netizens to be successful. Long before, during my internship I used to work on unix using Cygwin with KDE desktop on top of it and was totally impressed by the flexibility and the user friendly features it provides which is the only reason for struggling almost 2 weeks to install the same on my machine.

I would like to put this tutorial in such a way even a novice programmer or even a fresh man of the college can install Cygwin with KDE desktop. So, I am making some that the person reading this tutorial no experience of installing either Cygwin or KDE. The latest Cygwin DLL release version I used is 1.5.25-15.

So, lets start the installation. Just blindly follow the instructions listed below:

1) Download the Cygwin installation executable from http://www.cygwin.com/ . (I assume that you are intelligent enough to download the setup.exe file from this site)

2) The setup.exe itself is a very small file, the installation downloads all the required files from the internet and does the setup.

3) Start the setup.exe - you should encounter something as shown in Image 1.

Cygwin Installation - Image 1

4) Click "Next" and proceed.

5) In the next screen, you will encounter three options, the first option is actually combination of the next two options. If you are reading this blog, I suppose you are installing Cygwin for the first time and advice you to select option 1. Cygwin setup first downloads all the requried files and later installs them one by one. Select required option and proceed further by clicking "Next".

Cygwin Installation - Image 2

6) In the next screen you will be asked to give the location of the root directory, leaving the default values doesn't do any harm. So, don't touch any thing and lets proceed.

Cygwin Installation - Image 3

7) Next, location where to store the downloaded files, its a personal preference, give any location where you want to store the installation files.

Cygwin Installation - Image 4

8) In the next screen, select the option based on your internet settings.

Cygwin Installation - Image 5

9) After clicking Next, the installer downloads the list of mirrors from where the packages for Cygwin will be downloaded. Choose the mirror closes to you for faster download time. Please note that these files are very large, so spare some time to choose a mirror nearer to your location. The list of mirrors locations are given at http://www.cygwin.com/mirrors.html .Check out this page to make a decision on the list of mirrors nearer to your location.

Cygwin Installation - Image 6

10) On clicking Next, the installer downloads the information files from each of the selected mirros and shows a page with all the available packages. This is the most crucial and difficult part of the installation. To make things easier, just do as listed, If you are making any other choice, I assume that you know what you are doing. Click "View" button, to show the "Categorical" view of all the available packages. In the top node, of the tree, you will find node "All" and "Default" next to it. Just click on "Default" untill you get "Install" in the location of "Default". Install being just blindly install all the available packages. If you are intelligent enough to make a right decision on what packages you require, then you are most welcome to do so.



Cygwin Installation - Image 7

Cygwin Installation - Image 8

11) This time, when you click "Next", the installer will start downloading and unpacking the packages. Once all the downlading is done (Go and have a jog or some snacks or atleast have a cup of tea.. ;)) it will take some time.. (not some, a long time to download and install all the packages).

12) Be prepared to encounter few error messages, but donot panic. ;) (I encountered this error message a lot of times saying "Error while downloading the packages" at 99%, you can imagine how irritating it would be after waiting for 5-6 hours for complete download)

13) After step 12, you are all set with the Cygwin installation, but you still need to set some environment variables to finish the Cygwin installation.

14) Right Click on the "My Computer" icon and select Properties from context menu and select "Advanced" tab. At the right bottom corner, you will find a button "Environment Variables".

15) Click the button and you will find the "Environment Variables" page.

Cygwin Installation - Image 9

16) Under the System Variables, you need to add the cygwin path to the "Path" variable.

Edit the "Path" variable and add the following locations to that.

c:\cygwin\bin;c:\cygwin\usr\bin;c:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin

17) Add a new variable, with Variable name : "DISPLAY" and Variable value : "127.0.0.1:0.0".

18) Now you are totally done with Cygwin Installation. Lets proceed with installation of KDE Desktop.

19) Now, follow this link http://webdev.cegit.de/snapshots/kde-cygwin/kde/kde3.4/ and download the required packages.

Note: The next few steps need to be executed in Cygwin bash shell

20) Open the Cygwin Bash Shell, and download the required packages.
wget -nd http://webdev.cegit.de/snapshots/kde-cygwin/kde/kde3.4/qt-x11-free-3.3.4-1.tar.bz2
wget -nd http://webdev.cegit.de/snapshots/kde-cygwin/kde/kde3.4/kdelibs-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2
wget -nd http://webdev.cegit.de/snapshots/kde-cygwin/kde/kde3.4/kdebase-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2
wget -nd http://webdev.cegit.de/snapshots/kde-cygwin/kde/kde3.4/kdepim-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2
wget -nd http://webdev.cegit.de/snapshots/kde-cygwin/kde/kde3.4/kdesdk-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2

tar -C / -xjf qt-x11-free-3.3.4-1.tar.bz2
tar -C / -xjf kdelibs-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2
tar -C / -xjf kdebase-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2
tar -C / -xjf kdepim-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2
tar -C / -xjf kdesdk-3.4.1-0.tar.bz2


21) Make sure that no Cygwin process is running.
1. create file list
find /opt/qt/3.3 /opt/kde3.4 -name '*.dll' >/tmp/files.lst
2. close *ALL* cygwin processes
3. open a windows command shell (cmd.exe) from Start/Run and goto cygwin installation root
cd c:\cygwin bin\ash bin/rebaseall -b 0x61000000 -v -T tmp/files.lst

22) With this now we are done with the KDE installation. But we need to write a small script to start KDE desktop.

cat >~/startkde #!/bin/bash
cygserver &
export CYGWIN=server
export SHELL=/bin/bash
xwin -fullscreen -noreset &
xwinclip &
xhost +
/opt/kde3.4/bin/startkde
kdeinit_shutdown
taskkill /IM xwin
taskkill /IM xwinclip
taskkill /IM cygserver

[press ENTER, then CTRL-D]

chmod a+x ~/startkde

now you can start kde with

~/startkde &

23) To display only kicker (uses Xwin multiwindow mode)

cat >~/startkde
/usr/sbin/cygserver &
export CYGWIN=server
export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0
xwin -multiwindow &
xwinclip &
xhost +
export SHELL=/bin/bash
kdeinit +kicker &

[press ENTER, then CTRL-D]

chmod a+x ~/startkde

now you can start kde with

~/startkde &

stop kde - run

kdeinit_shutdown

then close the bash window

24) This ends the tutorial for Installing Cygwin with KDE Desktop. Have fun.

Emptiness

I don't know how common this is, but for me, the main problem is that I feel disconnected from everyone and everything.

I have a few people out there who I care about, or who care about me, but no real intimacy with anyone. Worse yet, this is a long term pattern with me, it's been going on for enough years yet that it's quite possible I will be alone for the rest of my life.

This totally sucks.

I would like to have friends I could be truly close to, someone that I could be in love with, but I'm psychologically fucked up enough that I don't know how to make this happen.

I like to think that if I had love and intimacy in my life, life wouldn't suck nearly as much.

And hell, I think I've reached the point where I'm jealous of cult members. Those poor deluded fuckers who shave their heads and dance around in public begging for donations, or the heaven's gate suicide cult, at least they have a sense of purpose, of belonging. They must have a sense of devotion for their beloved cult leaders.

Is there any way of having meaning in life when I am disconnected from everyone and everything? I don't think so.

Custom Search

Whats common between Girls & Drugs?

Girls are very similar to Drugs, they are same genre,

1) Drugs are expensive
So are girls, ;) poor guys right from the day one of courting or living together, all the expenses of coffe shops, movie tickets, snacks, gifts ... (god knows where the list ends) should and will be borne by the poor chaps - Now I can understand why every father feels so happy after getting her daughter married, as a fellow being, we should understand the pain in supporting expenses of two ppl at a time, wife and daughter - feels good if some pain is relieved or passed on ;) As the Law of Physics says material cannot be destroyed or created, similarly the pain (of having a girl friend or a wife) cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be passed on.

2) Drugs are harmful to health
Needless to quote any illustrations.

3) Drugs are addictive
This is the only reason why even after centuries have passed adding more and more examples to the above two facts; still we find a lot of couples on this planet.

4) Once addicted to drugs, very difficult to recuperate
Once you feel the warmth of a woman's love, its very difficult to recover from it, and ultimately man has to succumb to the above three hazards.

Life Sucks...

We're all trapped.

Each of us is stuck being who we are. Sometimes we fight to change ourselves, but ultimately this has little effect. We can change what we do, but we cannot change who we are.

If you're a happy person, you don't feel trapped. If you're surrounded by people who you love and who love you, if you can do what you want to do in life, if you are at peace with who you are, why would you ever feel trapped? You wouldn't want to change yourself, you wouldn't need to try.

If you're a happy person, hey, you got lucky! Go back to the previous page, you'll find nothing of interest here.

I am not a happy person. Maybe you're not either. Maybe you're too fat, or too thin, too old, or too young. Maybe you're ugly and nobody wants to sleep with you. Maybe everyone wants to sleep with you, but nobody loves you and it's all meaningless. Maybe your body is fucked up and you're in pain all the time. Maybe your mind is fucked up and you're in pain all the time.

So you struggle with all these problems year after year, and you're getting nowhere, and you wonder if anything will ever change. And the unavoidable reality of it all is that, for you, life sucks.

But of course you're not going to give up so easily, you're going to keep struggling to solve your problems, to change yourself, to find happiness, wherever it is, whatever it is. But still, life sucks.

And you see all these people out there who are blissfully free of your problems, and if they can do it, there must be some way for you to as well. But they aren't doing you any good at all, they don't understand what it's like being you, and what good would it do you if they did understand?

So, the forces which created you, random or otherwise, have spoken. And they've determined that, for you, life sucks.

Suicide

I am not suicidal. My life sucks and I hate the way I am, but I don't feel the need to forcibly end it. Life is pretty short anyway, and I'm 23 already, so I don't see what the hurry is. Forty or fifty more years will go by soon enough. If people lived for thousands of years, that would seem unbearably long, but I can certainly do 80 years. Besides, I still have the hope, realistic or not, that someday I'll manage to find some happiness in my life.

Anti-suicide efforts often tend to irritate me, in a way. Society doesn't want people to kill themselves, but I suspect this is mostly for practical reasons. After spending two decades raising, clothing, feeding, and educating you, society expects to get many more decades of work out of you in return. If you die early, everyone else has been cheated of the payback they were expecting for all that effort they put into raising you. You can be as miserable as you want, but for God's sake, don't kill yourself.

Now, all of that said, as for what people who are suicidal should do, I can't give you some well thought out, logical answer as to the right course of action. I can only relate my own feelings on it.

I've known two people in my life who did commit suicide. Both were women who I'd only had a small amount of contact with, I didn't really know either of them. Both times, I heard about it afterwards, and I had the same reaction. I was very sad about it, I wished I had gotten to know them, I felt that if I had, I could have helped them somehow.

So I don't want anyone to kill themselves, and I guess I feel that no matter how much pain someone is in, their pain can be made bearable by talking about it with someone who cares about them.

Alright now, those last few paragraphs were far too positive and lacking in cynicism for me.

Unknown..

Maybe life sucks because we're all really just big brained primates who were meant to be living in small tribal groups hunting and gathering food, and our pain is the natural result of our living in an unnatural environment.

Maybe life sucks because we haven't turned our lives over to some cultural deity or whoever the One True God happens to be.

Maybe life sucks because we all have chemical imbalances in our brains.

The first proposition implies that the answer to life's problems is to abandon technology. This was put forth recently by the Unabomber, and before that by the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia.

The second is claimed by hundreds of different groups of religious fundamentalists, all of which disagree on the identity and nature of this One True God.

The third is put forth by psychiatrists.

I'm not sure which of the above groups is worse, but given their accomplishments or lack thereof, I highly doubt they have any answers for us.

So, I don't know the ultimate cause of, or the solution to, life's problems. I don't know how to end this with any helpful advice or words of wisdom. If you think you do, email me and let me know.

Grass isn't always greener on the other side

If its true, then there wouldn't be ny job hoppings in this world

Why am I so fucked up?

Why does life suck so much. What am I? What is the motive in life? Shouldn't there be some purpose of living this life. What do I need and what do I expect from life? Do I really deserve what I got? Am I worthy enough for all what I got? Is it something wrong to expect things from life? Is it wrong to crave for something better always? What if the crave for something better turns out to be the only reason for unhappiness?