I thought that Windows users could use an up-to-date howto on getting Darcs up and running. First I will show what needs to be downloaded. Then I will describe the configuration tweaks that need to be performed.
Required Downloads
- PuTTY, Plink, PSCP, PSFTP, Pageant, and PuTTYgen executables
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html - Darcs 2.2.1
http://homepage.mac.com/kirby81_it/darcs/darcs-2.2.1-win1.zip
(see Darcs Binaries for more info)
Required Configuration Tweaks
- Create a new folder c:\bin
- Copy all the downloaded exe and dll files into c:\bin
- Rename plink.exe to ssh.exe.
- Rename psftp.exe to sftp.exe
- Rename pscp.exe to scp.exe
- Prepend ‘C:\bin;’ to your PATH environment variable. See my previous post on how to do this.
- Use PuTTYgen to generate and store your key. I recommend leaving the password blank for your key, otherwise you have to enter it every time.
- Copy your public ssh key (from PuTTYgen) and add it to ‘my ssh keys’ on Patch-Tag.
- Run Pageant and add your previously generated key (the previous link describes this as well).
- Voila! You are now setup to push and pull repositories with Darcs and Patch-Tag!
Thoughts
How hard is this for most of you Darcs Windows users out there? Would you be interested in an installer which sets this all up for you?
You also need to
$ ssh @patch-tag.com once prior to “darcs get” in order to trust the server’s key, at least in windows xp.
An installer would be a very good idea. This is kind of a hustle to set up, and this is with out even going into firewall issues.