5 ms·

Back in my day you to to download a couple GB worth of cygwin, and that wasn't an actual environment, basically just a GNU toolchain compiled for windows. But i

by TylerE 4mo ago

Back in my day you to to download a couple GB worth of cygwin, and that wasn't an actual environment, basically just a GNU toolchain compiled for windows. But it got you like....grep and bash and stuff that ran natively on windows which was kinda cool.

_blk 4mo ago
... Now it's just called git bash
- michaelsbradley 4mo ago
  Just install and use MSYS2, git bash is derived from it anyway, and a regular MSYS2 installation offers a lot more.
noduerme 4mo ago
Cygwin was fun. I'd done zero development on Windows, but about 10 years ago I had to figure out how to deploy some nightly shell scripts across a bunch of local computers in a few dozen offices, where about 80% were MacOS and the rest were Windows. I don't remember exactly how I rigged it, but basically cygwin allowed me to keep the scripts as they were and trigger them in place, with a few small modifications. I never want to deal with that again ;) [edit] fwiw, Termux on Android is similarly a fun pseudo-environment. It's a nice and helpful toy.
- TylerE 4mo ago
  The biggest issue I remember is directory seperators... windows of course using \ which bash would then interpret as an escape. Cygwin mostly papered over that from what I can recall, but it could lead to some weirdness, like sometimes you'd get C:\\path\\es\\like\\this
  - rpeden 4mo ago
    You could also use forward slashes, like C:/path/subpath, which has worked since Windows 1.0/DOS 2.0. That's handy when you're entering paths in a Cygwin/MSYS Bash shell, but might not help much if you're trying to parse or otherwise work with existing patgh variables composed with backslashes.
    - TylerE 4mo ago
      Yes, you could if you were entering them manually, but some apps that generated file names would screw it up. I think they were using some sort of stdlib function to get the path seperator. Forward slash paths working in native windows apps also wasn't quite a given, either. Keep in mind this was a loooong time ago... like windows xp era maybe, even.
      - noduerme 4mo ago
        Yeah, I recall directory paths being the biggest PITA with running scripts in cygwin. But I mean, that was a very minor set of things to fix compared to what would've had to be written in anything else available at the time. Doing retail office deployments of custom code on employee computers is a weird niche, and you find whatever works and hope you can maintain it somehow. Cygwin was awesome though, saved me a ton of time and the client a lot of money for the moment. (The client later stipulated to all future franchisees that they had to buy only Macs, lol)
  - bschwindHN 4mo ago
    We should be using the baguette emoji for path separators for cross-platform compatibility. https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/96ufiz/proposal_for_a_new_directory_separator/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/96ufiz/pro...
  - coldtea 4mo ago
    Always used / and it worked for both cygwin/windows lands.
qalmakka 4mo ago
Does any older folk here remembers when NT was the Cool New Thing (TM) and it had by design support to multiple subsystems plopped over the NT API, and Win32 was just one of them alongside POSIX (Interix) and OS/2? There was even a _very short_ time span when Interix was actually usable (it was extremely short though)
- pjmlp 4mo ago
  Yes, the only reason I cared for Linux in first place was that the POSIX support wasn't that good. I am convinced that if POSIX subsystem was UNIX serious, GNU/Linux would never taken off on PC, and the whole would be divided between SGI, HP-UX, Solaris, Aix and Windows NT.
  - hnlmorg 4mo ago
    There were already better free options than Linux when Linux first started gaining traction. The reason Linux grew in the 90s was because it was part of the hacker culture. Not because better options didn’t exist. Kids liked the fact that Linux was a free-for-all, anything-goes, platform. It wasn’t stuffy like Unix and it wasn’t proprietary like Windows. Then those kids grew up and became decision makers themselves. And we started to see Linux replace FreeBSD and commercial Unixes.
    - pjmlp 4mo ago
      Which ones? BSD was tied in a lawsuit that left doubts on its future. Minix was a toy OS for university teachings. Coherent was commercial. Nothing else was there on the PC market.
      - hnlmorg 4mo ago
        386BSD and its derivatives (eg FreeBSD) weren’t really attacked by SCO like other UNIXes were. In fact SCO filed more lawsuits against Linux than they did (for example) FreeBSD. FreeBSD was also used heavily in the late 90s in ISPs and similar domains.
kergonath 4mo ago
> Back in my day you to to download a couple GB worth of cygwin You still can, and it still works exactly the same way.
- procflora 4mo ago
  It's true, but to be honest the MinGW-built stuff that ships with git for Windows has been enough since WSL took off.
iririririr 4mo ago
what do you mean? that's still the only way to work as a human in windows. wsl1 almost replaced it, but obviously they scrapped it. if you must use windows, it's because you will compile for windows. so you install MSYS, which is a linux distro-ish compiled native for windows. and do your work. wsl2 (and this apple thing) is just a meme. if you're working in it, you're better of just installing Linux or ssh'ing to a server.
- TylerE 4mo ago
  shrug. I haven't owned a Windows machine in years at this point. It's one of those things like PHP that I just decided my life was better off without.
- metaltyphoon 4mo ago
  > wsl2 (and this apple thing) is just a meme. if you're working in it, you're better of just installing Linux or ssh'ing to a server. Many enterprises allow windows only so your way into Linux is via WSL2
  - oso2k 4mo ago
    There is also git-bash which usually doesn’t need to have administrator to be installed. https://git-scm.com/install/windows https://git-scm.com/install/windows

by TylerE 4mo ago

_blk 4mo ago

... Now it's just called git bash

michaelsbradley 4mo ago
Just install and use MSYS2, git bash is derived from it anyway, and a regular MSYS2 installation offers a lot more.

noduerme 4mo ago

Cygwin was fun. I'd done zero development on Windows, but about 10 years ago I had to figure out how to deploy some nightly shell scripts across a bunch of local computers in a few dozen offices, where about 80% were MacOS and the rest were Windows. I don't remember exactly how I rigged it, but basically cygwin allowed me to keep the scripts as they were and trigger them in place, with a few small modifications. I never want to deal with that again ;) [edit] fwiw, Termux on Android is similarly a fun pseudo-environment. It's a nice and helpful toy.

TylerE 4mo ago
The biggest issue I remember is directory seperators... windows of course using \ which bash would then interpret as an escape. Cygwin mostly papered over that from what I can recall, but it could lead to some weirdness, like sometimes you'd get C:\\path\\es\\like\\this
- rpeden 4mo ago
  You could also use forward slashes, like C:/path/subpath, which has worked since Windows 1.0/DOS 2.0. That's handy when you're entering paths in a Cygwin/MSYS Bash shell, but might not help much if you're trying to parse or otherwise work with existing patgh variables composed with backslashes.
  - TylerE 4mo ago
    Yes, you could if you were entering them manually, but some apps that generated file names would screw it up. I think they were using some sort of stdlib function to get the path seperator. Forward slash paths working in native windows apps also wasn't quite a given, either. Keep in mind this was a loooong time ago... like windows xp era maybe, even.
    - noduerme 4mo ago
      Yeah, I recall directory paths being the biggest PITA with running scripts in cygwin. But I mean, that was a very minor set of things to fix compared to what would've had to be written in anything else available at the time. Doing retail office deployments of custom code on employee computers is a weird niche, and you find whatever works and hope you can maintain it somehow. Cygwin was awesome though, saved me a ton of time and the client a lot of money for the moment. (The client later stipulated to all future franchisees that they had to buy only Macs, lol)
- bschwindHN 4mo ago
  We should be using the baguette emoji for path separators for cross-platform compatibility. https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/96ufiz/proposal_for_a_new_directory_separator/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/96ufiz/pro...
- coldtea 4mo ago
  Always used / and it worked for both cygwin/windows lands.

qalmakka 4mo ago

Does any older folk here remembers when NT was the Cool New Thing (TM) and it had by design support to multiple subsystems plopped over the NT API, and Win32 was just one of them alongside POSIX (Interix) and OS/2? There was even a _very short_ time span when Interix was actually usable (it was extremely short though)

pjmlp 4mo ago
Yes, the only reason I cared for Linux in first place was that the POSIX support wasn't that good. I am convinced that if POSIX subsystem was UNIX serious, GNU/Linux would never taken off on PC, and the whole would be divided between SGI, HP-UX, Solaris, Aix and Windows NT.
- hnlmorg 4mo ago
  There were already better free options than Linux when Linux first started gaining traction. The reason Linux grew in the 90s was because it was part of the hacker culture. Not because better options didn’t exist. Kids liked the fact that Linux was a free-for-all, anything-goes, platform. It wasn’t stuffy like Unix and it wasn’t proprietary like Windows. Then those kids grew up and became decision makers themselves. And we started to see Linux replace FreeBSD and commercial Unixes.
  - pjmlp 4mo ago
    Which ones? BSD was tied in a lawsuit that left doubts on its future. Minix was a toy OS for university teachings. Coherent was commercial. Nothing else was there on the PC market.
    - hnlmorg 4mo ago
      386BSD and its derivatives (eg FreeBSD) weren’t really attacked by SCO like other UNIXes were. In fact SCO filed more lawsuits against Linux than they did (for example) FreeBSD. FreeBSD was also used heavily in the late 90s in ISPs and similar domains.

kergonath 4mo ago

> Back in my day you to to download a couple GB worth of cygwin You still can, and it still works exactly the same way.

procflora 4mo ago
It's true, but to be honest the MinGW-built stuff that ships with git for Windows has been enough since WSL took off.

iririririr 4mo ago

what do you mean? that's still the only way to work as a human in windows. wsl1 almost replaced it, but obviously they scrapped it. if you must use windows, it's because you will compile for windows. so you install MSYS, which is a linux distro-ish compiled native for windows. and do your work. wsl2 (and this apple thing) is just a meme. if you're working in it, you're better of just installing Linux or ssh'ing to a server.

TylerE 4mo ago
shrug. I haven't owned a Windows machine in years at this point. It's one of those things like PHP that I just decided my life was better off without.
metaltyphoon 4mo ago
> wsl2 (and this apple thing) is just a meme. if you're working in it, you're better of just installing Linux or ssh'ing to a server. Many enterprises allow windows only so your way into Linux is via WSL2
- oso2k 4mo ago
  There is also git-bash which usually doesn’t need to have administrator to be installed. https://git-scm.com/install/windows https://git-scm.com/install/windows