9 ms·

Cygwin is impressively complete - if you haven't checked in on it recently, there are over 5000 packages in the official repo (that's more than Arch Linux's of

by mappu 12y ago

Cygwin is impressively complete - if you haven't checked in on it recently, there are over 5000 packages in the official repo (that's more than Arch Linux's official repos), and adding the http://cygwinports.org/ http://cygwinports.org/ repo gives you full KDE, GNOME 3 and Xfce on windows (although KDE has a first-party port). What this tool offers over Cygwin is the ability to run unmodified linux binary-only software for which you do not have the source code. For me there's not very much of that although i release some at $DAYJOB.

mijoharas 12y ago
For me I've had too many problems with cygwin and $DAYJOB installs BLODA, so I'm really interested to see what comes of this, also since it uses arch and pacman, which are my distro of choice, it sounds pretty perfect to me! (no more having to recompile everything from source with cygwin or `rebaseall` and suchlike)
- Surio 12y ago
  Hmm, Have you looked at http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ before. I found this less of a hassle to install and work with, than cygwin.
  - mijoharas 12y ago
    Hmm... seems interesting, I still like the idea of this foreign-linux, it seems like the idea has a lot of potential. Thanks.
- dhimes 12y ago
  BLODA: Big List Of Dodgy Apps
lelandbatey 12y ago
I also want to out in a good word for Cygwin. It's fantastic, I have absolutely no complaints about it. I have python and GCC, as well as a fully working shell. I can do Linux development in either of my favorite languages (Python and C++) without any kind of worry, and they work without modification on Linux. Plus, having a working Bash with everything I want on Windows blows my mind.
- dhimes 12y ago
  Is it better than using virtualbox?
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    It applies a Linux-like polish to a Windows machine. You can manipulate the whole Windows filesystem from within a Linux-like environment. With a VM you get a full Linux environment that cannot simply get to your Windows environment - you get a clear separation between the two. I like to say Cygwin "civilizes" Windows.
    - fizgig 12y ago
      I dig the ability to cross into remote file systems transparently (much like PowerShell). Running "df -h //devwinserver1/c$" is cool, as is the ability to clean up cruft when a Nagios disk alert goes off, all from the comfort of my bash shell. Plus, with Xwin running, I can utilize cluster SSH to make managing Unix servers a bit less painful from my Windows machine (corporate standard image I have no control over).
    - superobserver 12y ago
      I agree. And when you add Chocolatey to the mix (just add it with an elevated cmd.exe as stated on chocolatey.org), you're about half-way to a GNU/Linux-ish Windows. (In elevated PowerShell, I actually used "choco install cygwin -y" after doing so!) I think in Windows 10 this is supposed to be even better with their OneGet framework that will be compatible with Choco. Things are looking better for those who have to use Windows but want the power of the GNU/Linux environment. It is thanks to which I no longer need VirtualBox anymore, granting the benefit of allowing me to run code a little more efficiently. The only gripe I have is I would really like to use openssh-server on Windows the way I do on GNU/Linux. I have yet to find a comparable solution that is opensourced and free.
      - bkeroack 12y ago
        I believe MS wants you to use remote Powershell instead of SSH.
Maakuth 12y ago
My biggest gripe with Cygwin (aside performance on some syscalls) has been package management, which used to require setup.exe to add or upgrade packages. That was nicely mitigated when I found out about apt-cyg[1]. It's a apt-getish frontend for setup.exe command line. Not as nice as real apt-get of course, but "apt-cyg install something" takes care of the most important use case. 1: https://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg https://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg EDIT: changed to github url
- mijoharas 12y ago
  Problem with apt-cyg is the occasional need to "rebaseall" to keep the cygwin dll's happy. a proper package manager would be nice, though it is a good solution all things considered.
- rlvesco7 12y ago
  Babun provides an nice layer over cygwin (preinstalled oh-my-z and other goodies) along with an excellent package manager as well. https://github.com/babun/babun https://github.com/babun/babun
  - hiperlink 12y ago
    Which is based on apt-cyg AFAIK. And I missed the the ``apt-get upgrade`` functionality in both pact/apt-cyg.
    - Maakuth 12y ago
      Indeed. It's kind of weird there's no package manager beyond setup.exe in Cygwin. There's even a port of rpm in the package collection. I wonder if Cygwin misses some bigger piece of functionality that is a requirement for rpm. Or maybe it's just good enough for most of use cases.
- Lambdanaut 12y ago
  It would also be really nice if Cygwin did a quick ping on all of the package hosts and then ordered them in order of least latency relative to you. Oftentimes I have to re-start the install process because I accidentally chose a host that's slow enough to delay the install for hours.
MrUnderhill 12y ago
It took many years before I realized and tried it, but Cygwin also very easily lets you run an OpenSSH server on Windows, which I find incredibly useful.
- Quiark 12y ago
  And it's also the only reasonable and free option for this. (Correct me if I'm wrong but I've tried)
rbanffy 12y ago
For me, Cygwin makes Windows bearable. It's still Windows, but, at least, it has a proper shell, interpreters, compilers, compressors (no need for WinZip or WinRAR - think about it!) and so on. For the same reason you need MacPorts or Brew on a Mac, you need Cygwin on Windows. Unless you are happy to spend your day in Visual Studio, in which case Cygwin will not be that useful.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  cygwin is fine, but if you want to spend most of your time in bash or using software designed for Unix you probably shouldn't be using Windows in the first place.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    Unless you need Windows just slightly more than you need Linux, or your hardware doesn't work properly under Linux, or you need software that Linux, even Wine, can't run. Or your processor isn't even capable of booting Linux, but it can run Windows (Intel Atom Bay Trail comes to mind). --edit apparently Bay Trail does support Linux. The big hype when it was launched was that it would not, that's where my confusion came in
    - emodendroket 12y ago
      I mean, no problem, but, ultimately, cygwin is walled off from certain parts of the system and you're just going to have to deal with the fact that WinNT has major differences from Linux for some tasks. I use cygwin sometimes too but it makes more sense "in addition to" than "instead of."
    - kbradero 12y ago
      actually I'm pretty sure Bay Trail do run Linux.
    - homarp 12y ago
      Linux runs on Bay Trail, e.g. https://www.happyassassin.net/fedlet-a-fedora-remix-for-bay-trail-tablets/ https://www.happyassassin.net/fedlet-a-fedora-remix-for-bay-... the problem was the 32 bit UEFI. Also solved: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/155557/installing-linux-on-an-32bit-uefi-only-machine http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/155557/installing-li...
thiagowfx 12y ago
I don't think it is fair to compare it with Arch packages in numbers. How many of these are really usable? Cygwin is a limited environment per se. In this sense, it is better to compare msys2 with Arch packages, since msys2 uses pacman.
david-given 12y ago
I've used Cygwin a lot in the past; it's great provided you don't have to stray outside the Cygwin world. If you need to interact with standard Windows executables it gets very hairy. In order to maintain Unix-ish semantics, it needs to do some rather odd things --- IIRC stderr is passed via a Windows named pipe rather than via the Windows file descriptor 2? And heaven help you if you need to run a Cygwin binary on a system with a different version of Cygwin installed on it... We found ourselves switching to MSYS whereever possible simply because it was less clever, and therefore more predictable. (Also the Cygwin package manager makes me sad.)

by mappu 12y ago

mijoharas 12y ago

For me I've had too many problems with cygwin and $DAYJOB installs BLODA, so I'm really interested to see what comes of this, also since it uses arch and pacman, which are my distro of choice, it sounds pretty perfect to me! (no more having to recompile everything from source with cygwin or `rebaseall` and suchlike)

Surio 12y ago
Hmm, Have you looked at http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ before. I found this less of a hassle to install and work with, than cygwin.
- mijoharas 12y ago
  Hmm... seems interesting, I still like the idea of this foreign-linux, it seems like the idea has a lot of potential. Thanks.
dhimes 12y ago
BLODA: Big List Of Dodgy Apps

lelandbatey 12y ago

I also want to out in a good word for Cygwin. It's fantastic, I have absolutely no complaints about it. I have python and GCC, as well as a fully working shell. I can do Linux development in either of my favorite languages (Python and C++) without any kind of worry, and they work without modification on Linux. Plus, having a working Bash with everything I want on Windows blows my mind.

dhimes 12y ago
Is it better than using virtualbox?
- rbanffy 12y ago
  It applies a Linux-like polish to a Windows machine. You can manipulate the whole Windows filesystem from within a Linux-like environment. With a VM you get a full Linux environment that cannot simply get to your Windows environment - you get a clear separation between the two. I like to say Cygwin "civilizes" Windows.
  - fizgig 12y ago
    I dig the ability to cross into remote file systems transparently (much like PowerShell). Running "df -h //devwinserver1/c$" is cool, as is the ability to clean up cruft when a Nagios disk alert goes off, all from the comfort of my bash shell. Plus, with Xwin running, I can utilize cluster SSH to make managing Unix servers a bit less painful from my Windows machine (corporate standard image I have no control over).
  - superobserver 12y ago
    I agree. And when you add Chocolatey to the mix (just add it with an elevated cmd.exe as stated on chocolatey.org), you're about half-way to a GNU/Linux-ish Windows. (In elevated PowerShell, I actually used "choco install cygwin -y" after doing so!) I think in Windows 10 this is supposed to be even better with their OneGet framework that will be compatible with Choco. Things are looking better for those who have to use Windows but want the power of the GNU/Linux environment. It is thanks to which I no longer need VirtualBox anymore, granting the benefit of allowing me to run code a little more efficiently. The only gripe I have is I would really like to use openssh-server on Windows the way I do on GNU/Linux. I have yet to find a comparable solution that is opensourced and free.
    - bkeroack 12y ago
      I believe MS wants you to use remote Powershell instead of SSH.

Maakuth 12y ago

My biggest gripe with Cygwin (aside performance on some syscalls) has been package management, which used to require setup.exe to add or upgrade packages. That was nicely mitigated when I found out about apt-cyg[1]. It's a apt-getish frontend for setup.exe command line. Not as nice as real apt-get of course, but "apt-cyg install something" takes care of the most important use case. 1: https://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg https://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg EDIT: changed to github url

mijoharas 12y ago
Problem with apt-cyg is the occasional need to "rebaseall" to keep the cygwin dll's happy. a proper package manager would be nice, though it is a good solution all things considered.
rlvesco7 12y ago
Babun provides an nice layer over cygwin (preinstalled oh-my-z and other goodies) along with an excellent package manager as well. https://github.com/babun/babun https://github.com/babun/babun
- hiperlink 12y ago
  Which is based on apt-cyg AFAIK. And I missed the the ``apt-get upgrade`` functionality in both pact/apt-cyg.
  - Maakuth 12y ago
    Indeed. It's kind of weird there's no package manager beyond setup.exe in Cygwin. There's even a port of rpm in the package collection. I wonder if Cygwin misses some bigger piece of functionality that is a requirement for rpm. Or maybe it's just good enough for most of use cases.
Lambdanaut 12y ago
It would also be really nice if Cygwin did a quick ping on all of the package hosts and then ordered them in order of least latency relative to you. Oftentimes I have to re-start the install process because I accidentally chose a host that's slow enough to delay the install for hours.

MrUnderhill 12y ago

It took many years before I realized and tried it, but Cygwin also very easily lets you run an OpenSSH server on Windows, which I find incredibly useful.

Quiark 12y ago
And it's also the only reasonable and free option for this. (Correct me if I'm wrong but I've tried)

rbanffy 12y ago

For me, Cygwin makes Windows bearable. It's still Windows, but, at least, it has a proper shell, interpreters, compilers, compressors (no need for WinZip or WinRAR - think about it!) and so on. For the same reason you need MacPorts or Brew on a Mac, you need Cygwin on Windows. Unless you are happy to spend your day in Visual Studio, in which case Cygwin will not be that useful.

emodendroket 12y ago
cygwin is fine, but if you want to spend most of your time in bash or using software designed for Unix you probably shouldn't be using Windows in the first place.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Unless you need Windows just slightly more than you need Linux, or your hardware doesn't work properly under Linux, or you need software that Linux, even Wine, can't run. Or your processor isn't even capable of booting Linux, but it can run Windows (Intel Atom Bay Trail comes to mind). --edit apparently Bay Trail does support Linux. The big hype when it was launched was that it would not, that's where my confusion came in
  - emodendroket 12y ago
    I mean, no problem, but, ultimately, cygwin is walled off from certain parts of the system and you're just going to have to deal with the fact that WinNT has major differences from Linux for some tasks. I use cygwin sometimes too but it makes more sense "in addition to" than "instead of."
  - kbradero 12y ago
    actually I'm pretty sure Bay Trail do run Linux.
  - homarp 12y ago
    Linux runs on Bay Trail, e.g. https://www.happyassassin.net/fedlet-a-fedora-remix-for-bay-trail-tablets/ https://www.happyassassin.net/fedlet-a-fedora-remix-for-bay-... the problem was the 32 bit UEFI. Also solved: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/155557/installing-linux-on-an-32bit-uefi-only-machine http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/155557/installing-li...

thiagowfx 12y ago

I don't think it is fair to compare it with Arch packages in numbers. How many of these are really usable? Cygwin is a limited environment per se. In this sense, it is better to compare msys2 with Arch packages, since msys2 uses pacman.

david-given 12y ago

I've used Cygwin a lot in the past; it's great provided you don't have to stray outside the Cygwin world. If you need to interact with standard Windows executables it gets very hairy. In order to maintain Unix-ish semantics, it needs to do some rather odd things --- IIRC stderr is passed via a Windows named pipe rather than via the Windows file descriptor 2? And heaven help you if you need to run a Cygwin binary on a system with a different version of Cygwin installed on it... We found ourselves switching to MSYS whereever possible simply because it was less clever, and therefore more predictable. (Also the Cygwin package manager makes me sad.)