4 ms·

Like every discussion about a windows shell, most of the comments are people saying "Actually I suggest you use cmder/clink/cygwin/msys/gow/powershell/etc". An

by saboot 11y ago

Like every discussion about a windows shell, most of the comments are people saying "Actually I suggest you use cmder/clink/cygwin/msys/gow/powershell/etc". An extensive write up on the features, advantages, disadvantages, and the use cases for each, is sorely needed.

smrtinsert 11y ago
Conemu should be first on that list.
giancarlostoro 11y ago
I tried a few of those, so I will share my experience with powershell and with cygwin as well as Babun which I enjoyed: * Powershell - Easy to use, typically comes with Windows, or not too complicated to install. Does plenty of unixy commands (ls, mkdir, all come to mind, not sure how many others). Definitely an improvement over plain old cmd, but sometimes it doesn't sync with system variables (could be a PEBKAC issue though) but it is definitely usable. * Cygwin - Works great, I would say somewhere about the same as Babun (I think it's based off of it if I'm not mistaken, but with it's own tooling, packages are from Cygwin if I'm not mistaken), my only "complaint" was to do with how it installs and what not, I think you're asked to pick a mirror and packages, someone feel free to point out if my assumption is wrong or if this has changed, I think it's an alright thing, but I rather be able to not even think about what I want to install until after I've installed it. * Babun - I honestly had a great experience using it, and definitely used it frequently enough, you would run a bat file and it would copy itself into your userdata folder when I used it sometime back, and came with plenty of the tools I wanted and it's own toys. In the end I say try them all for yourself (if you can) and use whatever is best for you. I would recommend starting out by trying PowerShell before the rest of these because it already comes with Windows sometimes saving you time, but that's just a solution for lazy people. In the end I ended up just going all in for Linux since my experimentation with these shells. If and when I go back to Windows (it's been half a year now or more) I'll likely use Babun or just plain PowerShell.
- brazzledazzle 11y ago
  One minor nitpick: Powershell is always available. XP/2003 is well out of support and shouldn't be installed. Vista and 2008 came with it once SP1 was introduced.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Just because they're out of support doesn't mean there aren't still existing installs around.
    - brazzledazzle 11y ago
      If they're being used professionally without paid extended support from Microsoft that's a bad sign.
- fphhotchips 11y ago
  The trick with Cygwin is that to install packages you just go back and run the installer again. So you can "think about what to install after you've installed it" if you like, but you can also get the ones you know you'll need (SSH for example) straight off the bat. It's not the most elegant system, but it's ok.
  - ryenus 11y ago
    I have a little batch program which automatically checks for the latest cygwin setup then run it to check for package updates in a least intrusive way: https://gist.github.com/ryenus/4a67039eccda13ee7e1f https://gist.github.com/ryenus/4a67039eccda13ee7e1f
voltagex_ 11y ago
I'll write one up if I can get some collaborators / donations.

by saboot 11y ago

smrtinsert 11y ago

Conemu should be first on that list.

giancarlostoro 11y ago

I tried a few of those, so I will share my experience with powershell and with cygwin as well as Babun which I enjoyed: * Powershell - Easy to use, typically comes with Windows, or not too complicated to install. Does plenty of unixy commands (ls, mkdir, all come to mind, not sure how many others). Definitely an improvement over plain old cmd, but sometimes it doesn't sync with system variables (could be a PEBKAC issue though) but it is definitely usable. * Cygwin - Works great, I would say somewhere about the same as Babun (I think it's based off of it if I'm not mistaken, but with it's own tooling, packages are from Cygwin if I'm not mistaken), my only "complaint" was to do with how it installs and what not, I think you're asked to pick a mirror and packages, someone feel free to point out if my assumption is wrong or if this has changed, I think it's an alright thing, but I rather be able to not even think about what I want to install until after I've installed it. * Babun - I honestly had a great experience using it, and definitely used it frequently enough, you would run a bat file and it would copy itself into your userdata folder when I used it sometime back, and came with plenty of the tools I wanted and it's own toys. In the end I say try them all for yourself (if you can) and use whatever is best for you. I would recommend starting out by trying PowerShell before the rest of these because it already comes with Windows sometimes saving you time, but that's just a solution for lazy people. In the end I ended up just going all in for Linux since my experimentation with these shells. If and when I go back to Windows (it's been half a year now or more) I'll likely use Babun or just plain PowerShell.

brazzledazzle 11y ago
One minor nitpick: Powershell is always available. XP/2003 is well out of support and shouldn't be installed. Vista and 2008 came with it once SP1 was introduced.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Just because they're out of support doesn't mean there aren't still existing installs around.
  - brazzledazzle 11y ago
    If they're being used professionally without paid extended support from Microsoft that's a bad sign.
fphhotchips 11y ago
The trick with Cygwin is that to install packages you just go back and run the installer again. So you can "think about what to install after you've installed it" if you like, but you can also get the ones you know you'll need (SSH for example) straight off the bat. It's not the most elegant system, but it's ok.
- ryenus 11y ago
  I have a little batch program which automatically checks for the latest cygwin setup then run it to check for package updates in a least intrusive way: https://gist.github.com/ryenus/4a67039eccda13ee7e1f https://gist.github.com/ryenus/4a67039eccda13ee7e1f

voltagex_ 11y ago

I'll write one up if I can get some collaborators / donations.