[ADMB Users] ADMB and Cygwin

[Ian Taylor]

This issue seems similar to one I had recently with R where the creation 
of a HOME environment variable for the ADMB-IDE pointed R to a new 
location where the things it was looking for were absent. In that case, 
creating a new R_USER environment variable pointing to the old location 
superseded the use of HOME and solved the problem. I don't immediately 
see a similar option with Cygwin, but I would suggest that an 
alternative that might work would be to copy all of c:/cygwin/ to 
c:/~/cygwin/ and modify the PATH to account for the change.
-Ian

Arni Magnusson wrote:
> Hi Takis and Mark,
>
> Alas, I haven't seen Cygwin since I tried it out back in 2003, so I 
> can't test this on my computer.
>
> My first response is that you may want to consider using c:/~ as the 
> home directory for both Cygwin and ADMB-IDE. I use that directory to 
> store settings for R, Emacs, and some smaller programs. I find it 
> convenient to store such files in one directory, for backup purposes 
> and when setting up a new machine.
>
> My guess is that it's not the name c:/~ that has a magical effect on 
> Cygwin, but rather that Cygwin keeps an eye on the environment 
> variable called HOME. After the ADMB-IDE installer sets this variable 
> to c:/~, Cygwin treats that directory as its home. That's how R and 
> Emacs work, and you may notice other programs storing user settings in 
> files starting with a dot.
>
> If ADMB requires the HOME variable to be defined, and Cygwin then 
> starts to use that directory, then the practical thing to do is to see 
> if they can share their home. If you prefer their home to be 
> c:/cygwin/home/besbeas, then you can redefine the HOME environment 
> variable to that directory name.
>
> Point by point:
>
> 1. Yes, the installer defines the HOME variable as c:/~, and creates 
> that directory containing program settings.
>
> 2. Cygwin has made itself at home in c:/~, maybe that's okay?
>
> 3. To redefine HOME, you can adjust that environment variable. There 
> are many helpful resources about environment variables on the web.
>
> 4. If Cygwin can't run the admb script, it's probably because admb.bat 
> is in c:/admb/gcc440/bin, but the PATH variable in Cygwin does not 
> include that directory. According to the Cygwin FAQ, you can set the 
> PATH in c:/~/.bashrc. It's also possible that Bash scripts 
> (http://admb-project.org/community/editing-tools/admb-ide/scripts-gcc-linux.zip/view) 
> are better for Cygwin's digestion.
>
> 5. Your current profile makes Cygwin recognize the HOME environment 
> variable, which is exactly the behavior I would prefer.
>
> I'm shooting in the dark here, so I would appreciate to hear from 
> Cygwin users. It would be useful to add a Cygwin sentence or two to 
> the ADMB-IDE manual.
>
> Arni
>
>
>
> On Mon, 5 Jul 2010, Mark Maunder wrote:
>
>> Arni,
>>
>> Any advice on the Cygwin issue below.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: P.T.Besbeas [mailto:P.T.Besbeas at kent.ac.uk]
>> Sent: Mon 7/5/2010 10:10 AM
>> To: Mark Maunder
>> Subject: RE: ADMB Course at Kent
>>
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>> Many thanks for a very nice workshop, and for your hard work today, 
>> which is greatly appreciated.
>>
>> I'll see you at the drinks reception later on tonight, but if you 
>> email Arni (?) about the cygwin problem I will be very grateful and 
>> it might get more attention. Here's a brief account:
>>
>> 1) The IDE installation we did together appears to have created a 
>> directory c:/~, with sub-directories emacs and icons.
>>
>> 2) Interestingly this directory has confused cygwin, which now uses 
>> it as it's home directory, rather than what was being used previously 
>> (ie c:/cygwin/home/besbeas). This means that the command $ cd and 
>> when cygwin starts take you to c:/~. A number of .files are 
>> subsequently appearing, eg
>>
>> $ ls
>> .     ..     .bash_history    .emacs   .recentf   emacs   icons
>>
>> 3) The obvious thing we tried together (renaming c:/~) doesnt seem to 
>> work as re-starting cygwin creates a new c:/~ and you are back to 
>> square 1.
>>
>> 4) Interestingly, when we first did this, you appeard to be able to 
>> run admb from cygwin, but this is no longer the case:
>>
>> $ admb
>> bash: admb: command not found
>>
>> I would find it very practical if I could call admb from a cygwin 
>> window.
>>
>> 5) Anders mention smthg about changing
>> c:/cygwin/etc/default/etc/profile
>> but I'm not sure. However I'm attaching this file for
>> suggestions.
>>
>> Many thanks, and I'll see a bit later.
>>
>> Takis
>>
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