I was reading discussions in Greg Hazel''s bugs, and would like to point some things that might make DevKit easier to use (as in, before dsl is around) when it''s an archive: 1) /etc/fstab doesn''t even need to be there if you install mingw under msys (e.g. msys\mingw), because then you don''t need to mount /mingw directory, it''s already part of root. Same thing about /usr/local: msys/local will pose itself as /usr/local. This directory shuffling can be done automatically after unpacking official tarballs. 2) gcc.bat/make.bat/sh.bat have issues: use of --login when it''s not needed (just changing PATH and launching target is sufficient, there''s nothing fancy in /etc/profile and I''m using it that way all the time, msys is smart about choosing correct defaults on its own), as a result there may be problems with double quotes, etc. Some solutions: - Require users to launch a batch file to enter dev mode: I use this myself. There are way too many things in my PATH and I don''t want gcc/msys in there interfering with other things, so I wrote a simple df-ruby-devel.bat that launches devel window for me with msys/mingw in PATH. It''s especially important when I might want ruby in my PATH, but not msys/mingw or anything named sh/make/gcc. - Use executables instead of batch files. I have experience in doing these, I use them extensively for cygwin (see http://git.kitsu.ru/mine/shell-wrapper.git, which has many complexities that are not needed for msys/mingw). I can write simpler versions for devkit if you need them. Using executables will ensure that cmd.exe does not: interfer with arguments parsing, show "Terminate batch file" warning when you press Ctrl+C, making error code always 0 impossible to spot. 3) what about dependencies? E.g. openssl (for eventmachine), zlib, iconv? They are already built/unpacked as a byproduct of building rubyinstaller, could they be included in DevKit? Sorry if I''m repeating myself.