Peter
Cygwin is a great application. What it allows you to do is bring the command line environment and many commands from the Linux world onto a Windows machine. If you have no choice but to use a Windows-based computer, yet you wish to have the power and flexibility of a Unix system, then Cygwin is for you.
Technically speaking, Cygwin is:
- A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing
substantial Linux API functionality.- A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.
It is really easy to install. If you head over to the Cygwin website, you can download a small setup program which provides a rather quirky, but working package manager will allow to pick which packages you want in your Cygwin distribution. They will then be downloaded and installed and Cygwin will be set up in the directory of your choice.
Once you are installed, you can double-click the shortcut that Cygwin makes on the Windows desktop to start a real bash shell. You won't have 100% of the commands available to you in your average Linux distribution, but you will be able to do a fair amount, including running basic sh and bash scripts, for example. You can of course, install any shell you like, you're not just limited to bash!
By default, the root filesystem (/) is mounted to a folder inside the Cygwin folder, and you can access your Windows mounted drives through the folders /cygdrive/DRIVELETTER.
From then on, it's pretty simple to use, so if you're already familiar with Unix command line stuff, you can get going!
You will of course find more detailed information, documentation and more and the downloads from the Cygwin site. The current release of Cygwin runs on all versions of Windows from 98 through XP (it apparently runs fine on 32-bit Vista too but is unsupported).
