dpkg available

["Mark Paulus" <mpaulus78@earthlink.net>]

Hello all,

I have compiled an alpha/beta version of dpkg-1.9.18
for cygwin.  It is intended to support the w32 architecture
(e.g. dpkg and/or apt will attempt to retrieve _w32.deb 
packages when doing apt-get/etc/etc).

You can find the files here:
http://debian-cygwin.sourceforge.net/bootstrap.

To Install:

download the dpkg-1.9.18_w32.nondebbin.tar.gz

If you want to stick with cygwin's md5sum, then you will need to 
save off /usr/bin/md5sum.exe.  If you don't care, then don't bother.
I think I have fixed all the scripts to work with cygwin's md5sum.

cd /, and extract the tarball.
touch /var/lib/dpkg/available
touch /var/lib/dpkg/status

cp /usr/bin/dpkg.exe /usr/bin/dpkg-deb.exe /usr/bin/dpkg-source to a 
directory that is first in your path (e.g., I have /sbin first, so I copy them there).
This step is necessary, because you can't update running files on NT.

download the dpkg_1.9.18_w32.deb

login as root (Important, since I have not disabled any of the root checks)

dpkg -i dpkg_1.9.18_w32.deb

If you saved off the cygwin version of md5sum, rename it back now
delete  /sbin/dpkg.exe, /sbin/dpkg-deb.exe and /sbin/dpkg-source 

You should now be able to do a dpkg -l and see an initialized archive with
one entry, your dpkg, version 1.9.18

For help on setting up a "root" environment, read and understand the 
following:  http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/ntsec.html

For other issues, please run them on/through this list.  I will try to answer as 
soon as I can, as I have probably forgotten something important.

Thanks all.

The next steps that I hope to accomplish are:
- generate a new apt package that fully supports _w32
- create a proper _w32 archive on debian-cygwin.sourceforge.net
- create shell/helper packages for the cygwin provided utilities (binutils/
textutils/perl/etc).  This will allow for installing other packages without having
to override dependencies.