5 ms·

What is the use case for Cygwin in the days of virtualbox/vmware?

by swah 15y ago

Vivtek 15y ago
Running Unison for easy local mirroring/backup, if nothing else.
RexRollman 15y ago
Because not everyone want to emulate an entire PC just to run a Unix command?
charliesome 15y ago
Git
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  That's available on Windows natively.
  - charliesome 15y ago
    Really? I wasn't aware... since when?
    - atambo 15y ago
      http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/ http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
      - charliesome 15y ago
        MSYS is just as native as Cygwin
        ComputerGuru 15y ago
        Not true. MSYS is mainly wrappers around existing, native WIN32/MSVCRT function calls.
    - timtadh 15y ago
      Prior to Fall 2007 when I started using Git on windows.
DanHulton 15y ago
I like Windows 7, but I prefer bash for my console. Enter Cygwin + Console 2. Now life is better.
elmindreda 15y ago
Being able to use a real shell with all the tools I'm used to when developing on Windows. Cygwin in combination with MinGW and the Windows native version of GVim lets me have almost exactly the same environment as I do on Linux and Mac OS X.
- fragsworth 15y ago
  You could mount the Windows filesystem from the Linux VM, and use the shell tools that way. I agree, though, it's still better to have Cygwin, because you can alt-tab and such.
  - elmindreda 15y ago
    I don't see Cygwin as a file manager but as another (better) interface to Windows. A Linux VM wouldn't let me natively run and debug Windows software, which is the entire point of me being in Windows in the first place.
ez77 15y ago
Cygwin gives you (seamless) access to the Windows file system. Is it possible to (say) 'sed ... | wc' a file in the host's directories from a VM?
- signa11 15y ago
  yes. for example in virtual box you can mount host's directory tree within the vm either in rw/ro mode. from then on, things are seamless.
  - ez77 15y ago
    I thought Windows' default filesystem (NFS?) was not safely writeable from Linux. Does your method involve changing Windows' filesystem?
    - morsch 15y ago
      Windows default filesystem is NTFS and it's pretty safe to write. I certainly wouldn't set up something like a server which relies on this, but for personal use or even a development workstation I think it's fine. I guess it might be a good idea to first check the disk using Windows after something like a power loss while the NTFS partition is mounted. But apparently NTFS-3G (one of the NTFS drivers) can also use the journal to recover the filesystem after a power loss.
  - Jach 15y ago
    For certain definitions of seamless. Windows has a habit of messing up nix file permissions and sometimes things just don't work at all unless you do it on the Windows side.
icebraining 15y ago
Or even andLinux [1], which gives you "a complete Ubuntu Linux system running seamlessly in Windows". [1]: http://www.andlinux.org/ http://www.andlinux.org/
- Dylan16807 15y ago
  *32-bit only
to3m 15y ago
Half-decent interop between the unix-y bits and the Win32 native bits. e.g., you might want to have a mostly unix-style build process that uses VC++ as the C compiler, and run it all inside Visual Studio using a makefile project.
msluyter 15y ago
I work at a company that currently provides a 32bit version of Windows 7 (the reasons are somewhat unclear.) But the bottom line is that we have the 3gb max addressable memory problem. When I have eclipse, outlook, chrome, various other dev tools and whatnot open, I'm often near the limit, and adding VMWare player or whatnot would probably be too much. So that's one reason... Plus, I find switching back and forth between a vm and the host OS still somewhat slow/clumsy. (Yes, I know I should get a new job...) I like the idea of Gow. Anyone know if you can achieve middle mouse button pasting as when you have X11 under cygwin?
- swah 15y ago
  Most folks use Putty to avoid the strange switching. Then its like a better command window.
nupark2 15y ago
I'm a UNIX and Mac OS X transplant using Windows for embedded hardware development (almost all the tools are Windows-only). I need a terminal from which I can operate on my Windows file system, but running an entire virtual machine is enormous performance-impacting overkill.
nalbyuites 15y ago
I work with a hosting provider and Cygwin is used all the time to provide SFTP access on Windows boxes. Haven't looked at sshwindows though.
- gvb 15y ago
  WinSCP works very well for sFTP. http://winscp.net/eng/index.php http://winscp.net/eng/index.php
barrkel 15y ago
Using Unix utilities (including Unix paths and forking semantics) on your Windows system. I regularly use Unix utilities to e.g. manage Windows processes; frequently, when a game crashes and leaves me with a blank screen, I can blindly alt-tab to a terminal and 'killall foogame', or if it's worse, ssh in. I use Cygwin to get approximately the same terminal environment in Windows as I do in Solaris, Linux and Mac. I have a suite of scripts to massage platform differences (e.g. Cygwin getclip / putclip vs xclip vs pbcopy / pbpaste, or cygstart vs open vs gnome-open / xdg-open / etc.). It means that in the terminal environment, I'm equally at home no matter what the OS. I run Cygwin in rxvt. Using a better terminal than a Windows command window is a must; until I started using rxvt, I didn't even live in bash. Rxvt / bash combo uses considerably less memory, less startup time and less disk space - my dual-boot macbook air has Cygwin installed in the Windows 7 partition.

What is the use case for Cygwin in the days of virtualbox/vmware?

by swah 15y ago

What is the use case for Cygwin in the days of virtualbox/vmware?

Vivtek 15y ago

Running Unison for easy local mirroring/backup, if nothing else.

RexRollman 15y ago

Because not everyone want to emulate an entire PC just to run a Unix command?

charliesome 15y ago

Git

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
That's available on Windows natively.
- charliesome 15y ago
  Really? I wasn't aware... since when?
  - atambo 15y ago
    http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/ http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
    - charliesome 15y ago
      MSYS is just as native as Cygwin
      - ComputerGuru 15y ago
        Not true. MSYS is mainly wrappers around existing, native WIN32/MSVCRT function calls.
  - timtadh 15y ago
    Prior to Fall 2007 when I started using Git on windows.

DanHulton 15y ago

I like Windows 7, but I prefer bash for my console. Enter Cygwin + Console 2. Now life is better.

elmindreda 15y ago

Being able to use a real shell with all the tools I'm used to when developing on Windows. Cygwin in combination with MinGW and the Windows native version of GVim lets me have almost exactly the same environment as I do on Linux and Mac OS X.

fragsworth 15y ago
You could mount the Windows filesystem from the Linux VM, and use the shell tools that way. I agree, though, it's still better to have Cygwin, because you can alt-tab and such.
- elmindreda 15y ago
  I don't see Cygwin as a file manager but as another (better) interface to Windows. A Linux VM wouldn't let me natively run and debug Windows software, which is the entire point of me being in Windows in the first place.

ez77 15y ago

Cygwin gives you (seamless) access to the Windows file system. Is it possible to (say) 'sed ... | wc' a file in the host's directories from a VM?

signa11 15y ago
yes. for example in virtual box you can mount host's directory tree within the vm either in rw/ro mode. from then on, things are seamless.
- ez77 15y ago
  I thought Windows' default filesystem (NFS?) was not safely writeable from Linux. Does your method involve changing Windows' filesystem?
  - morsch 15y ago
    Windows default filesystem is NTFS and it's pretty safe to write. I certainly wouldn't set up something like a server which relies on this, but for personal use or even a development workstation I think it's fine. I guess it might be a good idea to first check the disk using Windows after something like a power loss while the NTFS partition is mounted. But apparently NTFS-3G (one of the NTFS drivers) can also use the journal to recover the filesystem after a power loss.
- Jach 15y ago
  For certain definitions of seamless. Windows has a habit of messing up nix file permissions and sometimes things just don't work at all unless you do it on the Windows side.

icebraining 15y ago

Or even andLinux [1], which gives you "a complete Ubuntu Linux system running seamlessly in Windows". [1]: http://www.andlinux.org/ http://www.andlinux.org/

Dylan16807 15y ago
*32-bit only

to3m 15y ago

Half-decent interop between the unix-y bits and the Win32 native bits. e.g., you might want to have a mostly unix-style build process that uses VC++ as the C compiler, and run it all inside Visual Studio using a makefile project.

msluyter 15y ago

I work at a company that currently provides a 32bit version of Windows 7 (the reasons are somewhat unclear.) But the bottom line is that we have the 3gb max addressable memory problem. When I have eclipse, outlook, chrome, various other dev tools and whatnot open, I'm often near the limit, and adding VMWare player or whatnot would probably be too much. So that's one reason... Plus, I find switching back and forth between a vm and the host OS still somewhat slow/clumsy. (Yes, I know I should get a new job...) I like the idea of Gow. Anyone know if you can achieve middle mouse button pasting as when you have X11 under cygwin?

swah 15y ago
Most folks use Putty to avoid the strange switching. Then its like a better command window.

nupark2 15y ago

I'm a UNIX and Mac OS X transplant using Windows for embedded hardware development (almost all the tools are Windows-only). I need a terminal from which I can operate on my Windows file system, but running an entire virtual machine is enormous performance-impacting overkill.

nalbyuites 15y ago

I work with a hosting provider and Cygwin is used all the time to provide SFTP access on Windows boxes. Haven't looked at sshwindows though.

gvb 15y ago
WinSCP works very well for sFTP. http://winscp.net/eng/index.php http://winscp.net/eng/index.php

barrkel 15y ago

Using Unix utilities (including Unix paths and forking semantics) on your Windows system. I regularly use Unix utilities to e.g. manage Windows processes; frequently, when a game crashes and leaves me with a blank screen, I can blindly alt-tab to a terminal and 'killall foogame', or if it's worse, ssh in. I use Cygwin to get approximately the same terminal environment in Windows as I do in Solaris, Linux and Mac. I have a suite of scripts to massage platform differences (e.g. Cygwin getclip / putclip vs xclip vs pbcopy / pbpaste, or cygstart vs open vs gnome-open / xdg-open / etc.). It means that in the terminal environment, I'm equally at home no matter what the OS. I run Cygwin in rxvt. Using a better terminal than a Windows command window is a must; until I started using rxvt, I didn't even live in bash. Rxvt / bash combo uses considerably less memory, less startup time and less disk space - my dual-boot macbook air has Cygwin installed in the Windows 7 partition.