Re: "/usr/bin" supposed to exist?

Jason Tishler wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 04:09:40PM +0200, Cornelia Boenigk wrote:
>
>>if you try to find /usr/bin in Windows explorer: you don't see it,
>>seems not available.  if you run the cygwin bash and cd to /usr/bin
>>you will see all programmes installed.
>
>
> Under Cygwin, /usr/bin is a mount point:
>
>     $ mount | fgrep /usr/bin
>     C:\Cygwin\bin on /usr/bin type system (binmode)

Not sure, but this user may be experiencing the wonderful phantom
/usr/bin issue, where /usr/bin is there if you type a command like

    cd /usr/bin

but if you type

    cd /usr
    ls

you don't see it.  This has happened to me twice now in the past 6
months.  Not sure why, other than Cygwin setup.exe or one of the post
install scripts mangling something along the way.

I found a post online someplace (Google for "missing Cygwin /usr/bin
directory") on how to get things back the way they should be.  It
basically involved ripping out the mount and then rebuilding it.  But be
careful, because without the /usr/bin mounting, any commands you type
(like 'ls') may require the full path.  Basically, to "rebuild" things
so /usr/bin appears, do the following (assuming you have Cygwin
installed at 'C:\cygwin'; adjust as necessary):

$ cd /usr
$ umount /usr/bin
$ /bin/rmdir bin
$ /bin/mkdir bin
$ /bin/mount -f -s -b "C:/cygwin/bin" "/usr/bin"

This should set things so you see the /usr/bin directory again.

Note I have not had an issue with apps not working when this occurs.  It
is just that there does not "appear" to be a ./bin directory in /usr.
All the usual commands, though, work to access the files at this mount
point.  Very weird.  But I like directory listings to show things
properly, so I do the above when necessary.