Cygwin
Encyclopedia
Cygwin is a Unix-like
environment and command-line interface
for Microsoft Windows
. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment. Thus it is possible to launch Windows applications from the Cygwin environment, as well as to use Cygwin tools and applications within the Windows operating context.
Cygwin consists of two parts: a dynamic-link library
(DLL) as an API compatibility layer providing a substantial part of the POSIX
API functionality, and an extensive collection of software tools
and applications that provide a Unix-like look and feel
.
Cygwin was originally developed by Cygnus Solutions
, which was later acquired by Red Hat
. It is free and open source software
, released under the GNU General Public License
version 3. Today it is maintained by employees of Red Hat, NetApp and many other volunteers.
system call API
in terms of Win32 system calls, a GNU
development toolchain (including GCC
and GDB
) to allow software development, and a large number of application programs equivalent to those on Unix
systems. Many Unix, GNU, BSD and Linux
programs and packages have been ported to Cygwin, including the X Window System
, KDE
, GNOME
, Apache
, and TeX
. Cygwin permits installing inetd
, syslogd, sshd
, Apache
, and other daemons as standard Windows services, allowing Microsoft Windows systems to emulate Unix
and Linux
servers.
Cygwin programs are installed by running Cygwin's "setup" program, which downloads the necessary program and feature package files from repositories on the Internet. Setup can install, update, and remove programs and their source code packages. A complete installation will take in excess of 8 GB of hard disk space, but usable configurations may require as little as 1 or 2 GBs.
Efforts to reconcile concepts that differ between Unix and Windows systems include:
The version of gcc
that comes with Cygwin has various extensions for creating Windows DLLs, specifying whether a program is a windowing or console mode program, adding resources, etc. Support for compiling programs that do not require the POSIX compatibility layer provided by the Cygwin DLL used to be included in the default gcc, but is now provided by cross compilers contributed by the MinGW
-w64 project.
Cygwin is used heavily for porting many popular pieces of software to the Windows platform. It is used to compile Sun
Java
, OpenOffice.org
, LibreOffice
, and even server software, like lighttpd
.
Red Hat normally licenses the Cygwin library under the GNU General Public License
version 2 with an exception to allow linking to any free and open source software
whose license conforms to the Open Source Definition
. Red Hat also sells commercial licenses to those who wish to redistribute programs that use the Cygwin library under proprietary
terms.
engineer who observed that Windows NT and 95 used COFF
as their object file format, and that GNU already included support for x86 and COFF, and the C library newlib
. He thought it would be possible to retarget GCC
and produce a cross compiler
generating executables that could run on Windows. This proved indeed practical and a prototype was quickly developed.
The next step was to attempt to bootstrap
the compiler on a Windows system, requiring sufficient emulation of Unix to let the GNU configure
shell script
run. A Bourne shell
-compatible command interpreter, such as bash, was needed and in turn a fork system call emulation and standard input/output
. Windows includes similar functionality, so the Cygwin library just needed to provide a POSIX
-compatible application programming interface
(API) and properly translate calls and manage private versions of data, such as file descriptor
s.
Initially, Cygwin was called gnuwin32 (not to be confused with the current GnuWin32
project). The name was changed to Cygwin32 to emphasize Cygnus' role in creating it. When Microsoft
registered the trademark Win32, the 32 was dropped to simply become Cygwin.
By 1996, other engineers had joined in, because it was clear that Cygwin would be a useful way to provide Cygnus' embedded tools hosted on Windows systems (the previous strategy had been to use DJGPP
). It was especially attractive because it was possible to do a three-way cross-compile, for instance to use a hefty Sun workstation
to build, say, a Windows-x-MIPS
cross-compiler, which was faster than using the PC at the time. In 1999, Cygnus offered Cygwin 1.0 as a commercial product of interest in its own right although subsequent versions have not been released, instead relying on continued open source releases.
Geoffrey Noer was the project lead from 1996-1998. Christopher Faylor has been the project lead since 1998. Corinna Vinschen became co-lead since early 2004 when Faylor left Red Hat.
The Cygwin/X
project contributes an implementation of the X Window System
that allows graphical Unix programs to display their user interfaces on the Windows desktop. This can be used both with local and remote programs. Cygwin ships with a fairly small number of X applications, for example:
In addition to the low-level Xlib
library for developing X applications, Cygwin also ships with various higher-level and cross-platform GUI
frameworks, including Gtk+
and Qt.
The Cygwin Ports project provides many additional packages that are not available in the Cygwin distribution itself. Examples include the GNOME
and KDE
desktop environments as well as the MySQL
database and the PHP
scripting language.
Toolsets like Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX (SFU)
, UWIN
, MKS Toolkit
for Enterprise Developers and Hamilton C shell
also aim to provide a Unix-like user and development environment. They implement at least a shell and a set of the most popular utilities. Most include the familiar GNU and/or Unix development tools, including make, yacc
, lex and a cc command which acts a wrapper around a supported C
compiler. SFU also includes the GCC
compiler.
MinGW
is a native software port
of the GNU Compiler Collection
(GCC) to Microsoft Windows, along with a set of freely distributable import libraries and header files for the Windows API
. MinGW allows developers to create native Microsoft Windows applications. In addition, a component of MinGW known as MSYS (Minimal SYStem), which was derived from Cygwin version 1.3.3, provides a minimal Unix-like shell environment including bash and a selection of POSIX
tools sufficient to enable autoconf
scripts to run.
In addition, there are numerous virtualization solutions that provide x86 platform virtualization to run Windows and Unix-like operating systems simultaneously on the same hardware, but without the integration of the environments that Cygwin provides. Some, like VirtualBox
and VMware Player
run on Windows and Linux hosts and can run many other operating systems. Cooperative Linux
(in short coLinux) runs a full, but modified Linux kernel like a driver under Windows, effectively making Windows and Linux two coroutines, using cooperative multitasking to switch between them.
Winelib
, a part of the Wine project, is the inverse of Cygwin - it is a free and open source
compatibility layer
for Unix-like
operating system
s on the x86
or x86-64
architecture that can allow programs written for Microsoft Windows
to run on Unix-like operating systems. Unlike Cygwin which requires "You rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows", the full Wine product supports executing unmodified Windows binaries.
Unix-like
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
environment and command-line interface
Command-line interface
A command-line interface is a mechanism for interacting with a computer operating system or software by typing commands to perform specific tasks...
for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment. Thus it is possible to launch Windows applications from the Cygwin environment, as well as to use Cygwin tools and applications within the Windows operating context.
Cygwin consists of two parts: a dynamic-link library
Dynamic-link library
Dynamic-link library , or DLL, is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems...
(DLL) as an API compatibility layer providing a substantial part of the POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
API functionality, and an extensive collection of software tools
Programming tool
A programming tool or software development tool is a program or application that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications...
and applications that provide a Unix-like look and feel
Look and feel
In software design, look and feel is a term used in respect of a graphical user interface and comprises aspects of its design, including elements such as colors, shapes, layout, and typefaces , as well as the behavior of dynamic elements such as buttons, boxes, and menus...
.
Cygwin was originally developed by Cygnus Solutions
Cygnus Solutions
Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software...
, which was later acquired by Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
. It is free and open source software
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
, released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
version 3. Today it is maintained by employees of Red Hat, NetApp and many other volunteers.
Description
Cygwin consists of a library that implements the POSIXPOSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
system call API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
in terms of Win32 system calls, a GNU
GNU
GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
development toolchain (including GCC
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
and GDB
GNU Debugger
The GNU Debugger, usually called just GDB and named gdb as an executable file, is the standard debugger for the GNU software system. It is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Java...
) to allow software development, and a large number of application programs equivalent to those on Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
systems. Many Unix, GNU, BSD and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
programs and packages have been ported to Cygwin, including the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
, KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
, GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
, Apache
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
, and TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
. Cygwin permits installing inetd
Inetd
inetd is a super-server daemon on many Unix systems that manages Internet services. First appearing in 4.3BSD , it is generally located at /usr/sbin/inetd.-Function:...
, syslogd, sshd
Secure Shell
Secure Shell is a network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client...
, Apache
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
, and other daemons as standard Windows services, allowing Microsoft Windows systems to emulate Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
servers.
Cygwin programs are installed by running Cygwin's "setup" program, which downloads the necessary program and feature package files from repositories on the Internet. Setup can install, update, and remove programs and their source code packages. A complete installation will take in excess of 8 GB of hard disk space, but usable configurations may require as little as 1 or 2 GBs.
Efforts to reconcile concepts that differ between Unix and Windows systems include:
- A Cygwin-specific version of the Unix mountMount (computing)Mounting takes place before a computer can use any kind of storage device . The user or their operating system must make it accessible through the computer's file system. A user can access only files on mounted media.- Mount point :A mount point is a physical location in the partition used as a...
command allows Windows paths to be mounted as "filesystems" in the Unix file space. Initial mount points can be configured in/etc/fstab, which has a very similar format as on Unix systems, except that Windows paths appear in place of devices. Filesystems can be mounted in binary mode (by default), or in text mode, which enables automatic conversion between LF and CRLF endingsFstabThe fstab file is a system configuration file commonly found on Unix systems. The fstab file typically lists all available disks and disk partitions, and indicates how they are to be initialized or otherwise integrated into the overall system's file system...NewlineIn computing, a newline, also known as a line break or end-of-line marker, is a special character or sequence of characters signifying the end of a line of text. The name comes from the fact that the next character after the newline will appear on a new line—that is, on the next line below the...
(which only affects programs that open files without explicitly specifying text or binary mode). - Cygwin 1.7 introduced comprehensive support for POSIX localesLocaleIn computing, locale is a set of parameters that defines the user's language, country and any special variant preferences that the user wants to see in their user interface...
and many character encodingsCharacter encodingA character encoding system consists of a code that pairs each character from a given repertoire with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks or storage of text in...
, whereby the UTF-8UTF-8UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...
UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
encoding became the default. Windows file names and other identifiers, which are encoded as UTF-16, are automatically converted to and from the selected character encoding. - Windows drive letters are mapped to a special directory, so for example
C:appears as/cygdrive/c. The/cygdriveprefix can be changed. Windows network paths of the form\\HOST\SHARE\FILEare mapped to//HOST/SHARE/FILE. Windows paths can also be used directly from Cygwin programs, but many programs do not support them correctly, hence this is discouraged. - Full-featured
/devand/procfile systems are provided./proc/registryprovides direct filesystem access to the registry. - POSIX symbolic linksSymbolic linkIn computing, a symbolic link is a special type of file that contains a reference to another file or directory in the form of an absolute or relative path and that affects pathname resolution. Symbolic links were already present by 1978 in mini-computer operating systems from DEC and Data...
are supported. They are represented as plain text files with the system attributeAttribattrib is a command, in DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. The function of attrib is to set and remove file attributes...
set. Cygwin 1.5 represented them as Windows ExplorerWindows ExplorerThis article is about the Windows file system browser. For the similarly named web browser, see Internet ExplorerWindows Explorer is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface...
shortcuts, but this has been changed for reasons of performance and POSIX correctness. Cygwin also recognises NTFS junctions pointsNTFS junction pointAn NTFS junction point is a feature of the NTFS file system that provides the ability to create a symbolic link to a directory which then functions as an alias of that directory...
and symbolic linksNTFS symbolic linkAn NTFS symbolic link is a filesystem object in the NTFS filesystem that points to another filesystem object. The object being pointed to is called the target. Symbolic links should be transparent to users; the links appear as normal files or directories, and can be acted upon by the user or...
and treats them as POSIX symbolic links, but it does not create them as their semantics are not fully POSIX-compliant. - The SolarisSolaris Operating SystemSolaris is a Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems. It superseded their earlier SunOS in 1993. Oracle Solaris, as it is now known, has been owned by Oracle Corporation since Oracle's acquisition of Sun in January 2010....
API for handling access control listAccess control listAn access control list , with respect to a computer file system, is a list of permissions attached to an object. An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects. Each entry in a typical ACL specifies a subject...
s (ACLs) is supported and maps to the Windows NT ACL system. - Special formats of
/etc/passwdand/etc/groupare provided that include pointers to the Windows equivalent SIDSecurity IdentifierIn the context of the Microsoft Windows NT line of operating systems, a Security Identifier is a unique name which is assigned by a Windows Domain controller during the log on process that is used to identify a subject, such as a user or a group of users in a network of NT/2000...
s (in the GECOS fieldGecos fieldThe gecos field, or GECOS field is an entry in the /etc/passwd file on Unix, and similar operating systems.It is typically used to record general information about the account or its user such as their real name and phone number.-Format:...
), allowing for mapping between Unix and Windows users and groups. - The fork system call for duplicating a process is fully implemented, but it does not map well to the Windows API. For example, the copy-on-writeCopy-on-writeCopy-on-write is an optimization strategy used in computer programming. The fundamental idea is that if multiple callers ask for resources which are initially indistinguishable, they can all be given pointers to the same resource...
optimization strategy could not be used. As a result, Cygwin's fork is rather slow compared with Linux and others. (That overhead can often be avoided by replacing uses of the fork/execFork-execFork-exec is a commonly used technique in Unix whereby an executing process spawns a new program. fork is the name of the system call that the parent process uses to "divide" itself . After calling fork, the created child process is an exact copy of the parent except for the return value...
technique with calls to the spawnSpawn (computing)Spawn in computing refers to a function that loads and executes a new child process.The current process may or may not continue to execute asynchronously...
functions declared in the Windows-specific process.hProcess.hprocess.h is a C header file which contains function declarations and macros used in working with threads and processes. Most C compilers that target DOS, Windows 3.1x, Win32, OS/2, Novell NetWare or DOS extenders supply this header and the library functions in their C library...
header). - The Cygwin DLL contains a console driver that emulates a Unix-style terminalTerminal emulatorA terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
within the Windows consoleWin32 consoleWin32 console is a text user interface implementation within the system of Windows API, which runs console applications. A Win32 console has a screen buffer and an input buffer, and is available both as a window or in text mode screen, with switching back and forth available via Alt-Enter...
. Cygwin's default user interface is the bash shell running in the Cygwin console. - The DLL also implements pseudo terminalPseudo terminalIn some operating systems, including Unix, a pseudo terminal is a pseudo-device pair that provides a text terminal interface without an associated device, such as a virtual console, computer terminal or serial port...
(pty) devices. Cygwin ships with a number of terminal emulatorsTerminal emulatorA terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....
that are based on them, including minttyMinTTYIn computing, mintty is a free and open source terminal emulator for Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows. It features a native Windows user interface and does not require an X server...
, rxvtRxvtrxvt is a terminal emulator for the X Window System , originally written by Rob Nation and later extensively modified by Mark Olesen, who took over maintenance for several years...
(-unicodeRxvt-unicoderxvt-unicode, commonly known as urxvt, is a color VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System. It was written by Marc Lehmann, who forked it from rxvt in November 2003...
), and xtermXtermIn computing, xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. A user can have many different invocations of xterm running at once on the same display, each of which provides independent input/output for the process running in it .xterm originated prior to the X Window System...
. These are more compliant with Unix terminal standards and user interface conventions than the Cygwin console, but are less suited for running Windows console programs. - Various utilities are provided for converting between Windows and Unix paths and file formats, for handling line ending (CRLF/LF) issues, for displaying the DLLDynamic-link libraryDynamic-link library , or DLL, is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems...
s that an executable is linked with, etc. - Apart from always being linked against the Cygwin DLL, Cygwin executables are normal Windows executables. This means that Cygwin programs have full access to the Windows APIWindows APIThe Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was formerly called the Win32 API; however, the name "Windows API" more accurately reflects its roots in 16-bit Windows and its support on...
and other Windows libraries, which allows gradual porting of programs from one platform to the other. Programmers do need to be careful though about mixing conflicting POSIX and Windows functions.
The version of gcc
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
that comes with Cygwin has various extensions for creating Windows DLLs, specifying whether a program is a windowing or console mode program, adding resources, etc. Support for compiling programs that do not require the POSIX compatibility layer provided by the Cygwin DLL used to be included in the default gcc, but is now provided by cross compilers contributed by the MinGW
MinGW
MinGW , formerly mingw32, is a native software port of the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Binutils for use in the development of native Microsoft Windows applications; MinGW can function either as a cross compiler targeting Windows or as a native toolchain run on Windows itself...
-w64 project.
Cygwin is used heavily for porting many popular pieces of software to the Windows platform. It is used to compile Sun
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
, LibreOffice
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite developed by The Document Foundation as a fork of OpenOffice.org. It is largely compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms...
, and even server software, like lighttpd
Lighttpd
lighttpd is an open-source web server more optimized for speed-critical environments than common products while remaining standards-compliant, secure and flexible...
.
Red Hat normally licenses the Cygwin library under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
version 2 with an exception to allow linking to any free and open source software
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
whose license conforms to the Open Source Definition
Open Source Definition
The Open Source Definition is a document published by the Open Source Initiative, to determine whether or not a software license can be labeled with the open-source certification mark....
. Red Hat also sells commercial licenses to those who wish to redistribute programs that use the Cygwin library under proprietary
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
terms.
History
Cygwin began in 1995 as a project of Steve Chamberlain, a CygnusCygnus Solutions
Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software...
engineer who observed that Windows NT and 95 used COFF
COFF
The Common Object File Format is a specification of a format for executable, object code, and shared library computer files used on Unix systems...
as their object file format, and that GNU already included support for x86 and COFF, and the C library newlib
Newlib
Newlib is a C standard library implementation intended for use on embedded systems. It is a conglomeration of several library parts, all under free software licenses that make them easily usable on embedded products....
. He thought it would be possible to retarget GCC
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
and produce a cross compiler
Cross compiler
A cross compiler is a compiler capable of creating executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is run. Cross compiler tools are used to generate executables for embedded system or multiple platforms. It is used to compile for a platform upon which it is not feasible to...
generating executables that could run on Windows. This proved indeed practical and a prototype was quickly developed.
The next step was to attempt to bootstrap
Bootstrapping (compilers)
In computer science, bootstrapping is the process of writing a compiler in the target programming language which it is intended to compile...
the compiler on a Windows system, requiring sufficient emulation of Unix to let the GNU configure
Autoconf
GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available....
shell script
Shell script
A shell script is a script written for the shell, or command line interpreter, of an operating system. It is often considered a simple domain-specific programming language...
run. A Bourne shell
Bourne shell
The Bourne shell, or sh, was the default Unix shell of Unix Version 7 and most Unix-like systems continue to have /bin/sh - which will be the Bourne shell, or a symbolic link or hard link to a compatible shell - even when more modern shells are used by most users.Developed by Stephen Bourne at AT&T...
-compatible command interpreter, such as bash, was needed and in turn a fork system call emulation and standard input/output
Standard streams
In Unix and Unix-like operating systems , as well as certain programming language interfaces, the standard streams are preconnected input and output channels between a computer program and its environment when it begins execution...
. Windows includes similar functionality, so the Cygwin library just needed to provide a POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
-compatible application programming interface
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
(API) and properly translate calls and manage private versions of data, such as file descriptor
File descriptor
In computer programming, a file descriptor is an abstract indicator for accessing a file. The term is generally used in POSIX operating systems...
s.
Initially, Cygwin was called gnuwin32 (not to be confused with the current GnuWin32
GnuWin32
The GnuWin32 project provides native ports in the form of runnable computer programs, patches, and source code for various GNU and open source tools and software, much of it modified to run on the 32-bit Windows platform...
project). The name was changed to Cygwin32 to emphasize Cygnus' role in creating it. When Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
registered the trademark Win32, the 32 was dropped to simply become Cygwin.
By 1996, other engineers had joined in, because it was clear that Cygwin would be a useful way to provide Cygnus' embedded tools hosted on Windows systems (the previous strategy had been to use DJGPP
DJGPP
DJGPP is a development suite for 386+ IBM PC compatibles which supports DOS-enabled operating systems. It is guided by DJ Delorie, who began the project in 1989. It is a port of the popular GCC compiler, as well as mostly GNU utilities such as bash, find, tar, ls, awk, sed, and ld to DPMI...
). It was especially attractive because it was possible to do a three-way cross-compile, for instance to use a hefty Sun workstation
SUN workstation
The original SUN workstation was a modular computer system designed at Stanford University in the early 1980s.-History:The project name was derived from Stanford University Network, the campus network within Stanford....
to build, say, a Windows-x-MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
cross-compiler, which was faster than using the PC at the time. In 1999, Cygnus offered Cygwin 1.0 as a commercial product of interest in its own right although subsequent versions have not been released, instead relying on continued open source releases.
Geoffrey Noer was the project lead from 1996-1998. Christopher Faylor has been the project lead since 1998. Corinna Vinschen became co-lead since early 2004 when Faylor left Red Hat.
Features
Cygwin's default package selection is fairly minimal, containing little more than the bash shell and the core file manipulation utilities expected of a Unix command line. A wide range of additional packages are available as optional installs in Cygwin's package manager ("setup.exe"). These include (among much else):- Shells (i.e. command line interpreters): bash, dashDebian Almquist shellThe Debian Almquist shell is a Unix shell, much smaller than bash but still aiming at POSIX-compliancy. It requires less disk space but is also less feature-rich.- History :...
, pdkshKorn shellThe Korn shell is a Unix shell which was developed by David Korn in the early 1980s and announced at USENIX on July 14, 1983. Other early contributors were AT&T Bell Labs developers Mike Veach, who wrote the emacs code, and Pat Sullivan, who wrote the vi code...
, tcshTcshtcsh is a Unix shell based on and compatible with the C shell . It is essentially the C shell with programmable command line completion, command-line editing, and a few other features.-History:...
, zsh - File and system utilities: coreutils, findutilsFindutilsFindutils is a GNU package which offers basic file searching utilities to search the systems directories of GNU and Unix based computers. It contains implementations of the tools find, locate, updatedb, and xargs....
, util-linuxUtil-linuxutil-linux is a standard package of the Linux operating system. A fork, util-linux-ng—with ng meaning "next generation"—was created when development stalled, but as of January 2011 has been renamed back to util-linux, and is the official version of the package.It includes the following... - Text utilities: grepGrepgrep is a command-line text-search utility originally written for Unix. The name comes from the ed command g/re/p...
, sedSedsed is a Unix utility that parses text and implements a programming language which can apply transformations to such text. It reads input line by line , applying the operation which has been specified via the command line , and then outputs the line. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 as a Unix...
, diffDiffIn computing, diff is a file comparison utility that outputs the differences between two files. It is typically used to show the changes between one version of a file and a former version of the same file. Diff displays the changes made per line for text files. Modern implementations also...
, patchPatch (Unix)patch is a Unix program that updates text files according to instructions contained in a separate file, called a patch file. The patch file is a text file that consists of a list of differences and is produced by running the related diff program with the original and updated file as arguments...
, awk - Terminals: minttyMinTTYIn computing, mintty is a free and open source terminal emulator for Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows. It features a native Windows user interface and does not require an X server...
, rxvtRxvtrxvt is a terminal emulator for the X Window System , originally written by Rob Nation and later extensively modified by Mark Olesen, who took over maintenance for several years...
, screenGNU ScreenGNU Screen is a software application that can be used to multiplex several virtual consoles, allowing a user to access multiple separate terminal sessions inside a single terminal window or remote terminal session... - Editors: emacsEmacsEmacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
, joeJoe's Own EditorJOE or Joe's Own Editor is a terminal-based text editor for Unix systems, available under the GPL. It is designed to be easy to use.JOE is distributed in most major Linux distributions and open-source BSD systems.- Description of features :...
, minedMined (text editor)MinEd is a terminal-based text editor providing extensive Unicode and CJK support, available under the GPL.Mined is available for Unix and Linux, Windows and DOS systems, and is included in the SUSE, Debian, Cygwin and FreeBSD distributions....
, nanoNano (text editor)nano is a text editor for Unix-like computing systems or operating environments using a command line interface. It emulates the Pico text editor, part of the Pine email client, and also provides additional functionality....
, vimVim (text editor)Vim is a text editor written by Bram Moolenaar and first released publicly in 1991. Based on the vi editor common to Unix-like systems, Vim is designed for use both from a command line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface... - Remote login: sshOpenSSHOpenSSH is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the SSH protocol...
, rshRemote ShellThe remote shell is a command line computer program that can execute shell commands as another user, and on another computer across a computer network.The remote system to which rsh connects runs the rshd daemon...
, telnetTELNETTelnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection... - Remote file transfer/synchronization: ftp, scpSecure copySecure Copy or SCP is a means of securely transferring computer files between a local and a remote host or between two remote hosts. It is based on the Secure Shell protocol....
, rsyncRsyncrsync is a software application and network protocol for Unix-like and Windows systems which synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer using delta encoding when appropriate. An important feature of rsync not found in most similar...
, unisonUnison (file synchronizer)Unison is a file synchronization program. It is used for synchronizing files between two directories, either on one computer, or between a computer and another storage device Unison is a file synchronization program. It is used for synchronizing files between two directories, either on one...
, rtorrentRTorrentrTorrent is a text-based ncurses BitTorrent client written in C++, based on the libTorrent libraries for Unix, whose author's goal is “a focus on high performance and good code”... - Compression/archiving: tarTar (file format)In computing, tar is both a file format and the name of a program used to handle such files...
, gzipGzipGzip is any of several software applications used for file compression and decompression. The term usually refers to the GNU Project's implementation, "gzip" standing for GNU zip. It is based on the DEFLATE algorithm, which is a combination of Lempel-Ziv and Huffman coding...
, bzip2Bzip2bzip2 is a free and open source implementation of the Burrows–Wheeler algorithm. It is developed and maintained by Julian Seward. Seward made the first public release of bzip2, version 0.15, in July 1996.-Compression efficiency:...
, lzmaLZMAThe Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm is an algorithm used to perform data compression. It has been under development since 1998 and was first used in the 7z format of the 7-Zip archiver...
, zipZIP (file format)Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is... - Text processing: TeXTeXTeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
, groffGroff (software)Groff is the GNU replacement for the troff and nroff text formatters. It is an original implementation written primarily in C++ by James Clark and is modeled after ditroff, including many extensions. The first version, 0.3.1, was released June 1990. The first stable version, 1.04, was announced in...
, GhostscriptGhostscriptGhostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format page description languages.- Features :... - Programming languages: CC (programming language)C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
, C++C++C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
, Objective-CObjective-CObjective-C is a reflective, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language.Today, it is used primarily on Apple's Mac OS X and iOS: two environments derived from the OpenStep standard, though not compliant with it...
, FortranFortranFortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
, PerlPerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
, PythonPython (programming language)Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
, RubyRuby (programming language)Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...
, TclTclTcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...
, AdaAda (programming language)Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages...
, CLISPCLISPIn computing, CLISP is an implementation of the programming language Common Lisp originally developed by Bruno Haible and Michael Stoll for the Atari ST...
, Scheme, Objective CamlObjective CamlOCaml , originally known as Objective Caml, is the main implementation of the Caml programming language, created by Xavier Leroy, Jérôme Vouillon, Damien Doligez, Didier Rémy and others in 1996...
, PrologPrologProlog is a general purpose logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics.Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is declarative: the program logic is expressed in terms of... - Development tools: make, autotools, flexFlex lexical analyserflex is a free software alternative to lex. It is frequently used with the free Bison parser generator. Unlike Bison, flex is not part of the GNU Project. Flex was written in C by Vern Paxson around 1987...
, bisonGNU bisonGNU bison, commonly known as Bison, is a parser generator that is part of the GNU Project. Bison reads a specification of a context-free language, warns about any parsing ambiguities, and generates a parser which reads sequences of tokens and decides whether the sequence conforms to the syntax...
, doxygenDoxygenDoxygen is a documentation generator for multiple programming languages.Doxygen is a tool for writing software reference documentation. The documentation is written within code, and is thus relatively easy to keep up to date... - Version control systems: cvsConcurrent Versions SystemThe Concurrent Versions System , also known as the Concurrent Versioning System, is a client-server free software revision control system in the field of software development. Version control system software keeps track of all work and all changes in a set of files, and allows several developers ...
, subversion, gitGit (software)Git is a distributed revision control system with an emphasis on speed. Git was initially designed and developed by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development. Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full revision tracking capabilities, not dependent on...
, mercurialMercurialMercurial is a cross-platform, distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is mainly implemented using the Python programming language, but includes a binary diff implementation written in C. It is supported on Windows and Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Linux... - Servers: ApacheApache HTTP ServerThe Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
, BINDBINDBIND , or named , is the most widely used DNS software on the Internet.On Unix-like operating systems it is the de facto standard.Originally written by four graduate students at the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley , the name originates as an acronym from...
, PostgreSQLPostgreSQLPostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
, Pure-FTPdPure-FTPdPure-FTPd is a free FTP Server with a strong focus on software security. It can be compiled and run on a variety of Unix-like computer operating systems including Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, Solaris, Tru64, Darwin, Irix and HP-UX. It has also been ported to Android...
, OpenSSHOpenSSHOpenSSH is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the SSH protocol...
, telnetd, eximEximExim is a mail transfer agent used on Unix-like operating systems. Exim is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, and it aims to be a general and flexible mailer with extensive facilities for checking incoming e-mail....
, UW IMAPUW IMAPThe UW IMAP server is the reference server implementation of the IMAP protocol. Unlike other server implementations, it is designed to be aggressively compatible with existing legacy mail stores and systems, and to be "plug-and-play" installable without requiring any site-specific configuration.UW... - Clients: MuttMutt (e-mail client)Mutt is a text-based email client for Unix-like systems. It was originally written by Michael Elkins in 1995 and released under the GNU General Public License version 2 or any later version....
(email), LynxLynx (web browser)Lynx is a text-based web browser for use on cursor-addressable character cell terminals and is very configurable.-Usage:Browsing in Lynx consists of highlighting the chosen link using cursor keys, or having all links on a page numbered and entering the chosen link's number. Current versions support...
(web), IrssiIrssiIrssi is an IRC client program for Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X. It was originally written by Timo Sirainen, and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License in January 1999.-Features:...
(IRC), tinTin (newsreader)tin is an open source text-based and threaded news client, used to read and post messages on the USENET global communications network.-History:...
(newsgroups)
The Cygwin/X
Cygwin/X
Cygwin/X is an implementation of the X Window System that runs under Microsoft Windows. It is part of the Cygwin project, and is installed using Cygwin's standard setup system...
project contributes an implementation of the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
that allows graphical Unix programs to display their user interfaces on the Windows desktop. This can be used both with local and remote programs. Cygwin ships with a fairly small number of X applications, for example:
- Terminals: rxvt-unicodeRxvt-unicoderxvt-unicode, commonly known as urxvt, is a color VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System. It was written by Marc Lehmann, who forked it from rxvt in November 2003...
, xtermXtermIn computing, xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. A user can have many different invocations of xterm running at once on the same display, each of which provides independent input/output for the process running in it .xterm originated prior to the X Window System... - Editors: emacs-X11, gvimVim (text editor)Vim is a text editor written by Bram Moolenaar and first released publicly in 1991. Based on the vi editor common to Unix-like systems, Vim is designed for use both from a command line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface...
- Text processors/viewers: LyXLyXLyX is a document processor following the self-coined "what you see is what you mean" paradigm , as opposed to the WYSIWYG ideas used by word processors...
, xpdfXpdfXpdf is an open-source PDF viewer for the X Window System and Motif.Xpdf runs on practically any Unix-like operating system. Xpdf can decode LZW and read encrypted PDFs. The official version obeys the DRM restrictions of PDF files, which may prevent copying, printing, or converting some PDF files...
, xdvi
In addition to the low-level Xlib
Xlib
Xlib is an X Window System protocol client library written in the C programming language. It contains functions for interacting with an X server. These functions allow programmers to write programs without knowing the details of the protocol...
library for developing X applications, Cygwin also ships with various higher-level and cross-platform GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
frameworks, including Gtk+
GTK+
GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;...
and Qt.
The Cygwin Ports project provides many additional packages that are not available in the Cygwin distribution itself. Examples include the GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
and KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
desktop environments as well as the MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
database and the PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
scripting language.
Alternatives
Several open-source and proprietary alternatives are available for simultaneous access to both Windows and UNIX environments on the same hardware.Toolsets like Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX (SFU)
Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX
Windows Services for UNIX or Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications is a software package produced by Microsoft which provides a Unix subsystem and other parts of a full Unix environment on Windows NT and some of its immediate successor operating-systems...
, UWIN
UWIN
UWIN is a computer software package created by David Korn which allows programs written for the operating system Unix be built and run on Microsoft Windows with few, if any, changes...
, MKS Toolkit
MKS Toolkit
MKS Toolkit is a software package produced and maintained by MKS Inc. that provides a Unix-like environment for scripting, connectivity and porting Unix and Linux software to both 32- and 64-bit Microsoft Windows systems. It was originally created for MS-DOS....
for Enterprise Developers and Hamilton C shell
Hamilton C shell
Hamilton C shell is a clone of the Unix C shell and utilities for Microsoft Windows created by Nicole Hamilton at Hamilton Laboratories. It was first released on OS/2 on December 12 1988 and on Windows NT in July 1992...
also aim to provide a Unix-like user and development environment. They implement at least a shell and a set of the most popular utilities. Most include the familiar GNU and/or Unix development tools, including make, yacc
Yacc
The computer program yacc is a parser generator developed by Stephen C. Johnson at AT&T for the Unix operating system. The name is an acronym for "Yet Another Compiler Compiler." It generates a parser based on an analytic grammar written in a notation similar to BNF.Yacc used to be available as...
, lex and a cc command which acts a wrapper around a supported C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
compiler. SFU also includes the GCC
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
compiler.
MinGW
MinGW
MinGW , formerly mingw32, is a native software port of the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Binutils for use in the development of native Microsoft Windows applications; MinGW can function either as a cross compiler targeting Windows or as a native toolchain run on Windows itself...
is a native software port
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
of the GNU Compiler Collection
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
(GCC) to Microsoft Windows, along with a set of freely distributable import libraries and header files for the Windows API
Windows API
The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was formerly called the Win32 API; however, the name "Windows API" more accurately reflects its roots in 16-bit Windows and its support on...
. MinGW allows developers to create native Microsoft Windows applications. In addition, a component of MinGW known as MSYS (Minimal SYStem), which was derived from Cygwin version 1.3.3, provides a minimal Unix-like shell environment including bash and a selection of POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
tools sufficient to enable autoconf
Autoconf
GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available....
scripts to run.
In addition, there are numerous virtualization solutions that provide x86 platform virtualization to run Windows and Unix-like operating systems simultaneously on the same hardware, but without the integration of the environments that Cygwin provides. Some, like VirtualBox
VirtualBox
Oracle VM VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization software package, originally created by software company Innotek GmbH, purchased by Sun Microsystems, and now developed by Oracle Corporation as part of its family of virtualization products...
and VMware Player
VMware Player
VMware Player is a freeware virtualization software package from VMware, Inc. . VMware Player can run virtual appliances. VMware Player can also create virtual machines since version 3.0...
run on Windows and Linux hosts and can run many other operating systems. Cooperative Linux
Cooperative Linux
Cooperative Linux, abbreviated as coLinux, is software which allows Microsoft Windows and the Linux kernel to run simultaneously in parallel on the same machine....
(in short coLinux) runs a full, but modified Linux kernel like a driver under Windows, effectively making Windows and Linux two coroutines, using cooperative multitasking to switch between them.
Winelib
Wine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
, a part of the Wine project, is the inverse of Cygwin - it is a free and open source
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
compatibility layer
Compatibility layer
A compatibility layer is a term that refers to components that allow for non-native support of components.In software engineering, a compatibility layer allows binaries for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system. This translates system calls for the foreign system into native system...
for Unix-like
Unix-like
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s on the x86
X86 architecture
The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's 8-bit based 8080 microprocessor and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of such designs...
or x86-64
X86-64
x86-64 is an extension of the x86 instruction set. It supports vastly larger virtual and physical address spaces than are possible on x86, thereby allowing programmers to conveniently work with much larger data sets. x86-64 also provides 64-bit general purpose registers and numerous other...
architecture that can allow programs written for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
to run on Unix-like operating systems. Unlike Cygwin which requires "You rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows", the full Wine product supports executing unmodified Windows binaries.
See also
- Cooperative LinuxCooperative LinuxCooperative Linux, abbreviated as coLinux, is software which allows Microsoft Windows and the Linux kernel to run simultaneously in parallel on the same machine....
- Cygwin/XCygwin/XCygwin/X is an implementation of the X Window System that runs under Microsoft Windows. It is part of the Cygwin project, and is installed using Cygwin's standard setup system...
(X11 for Cygwin) - InterixInterixInterix is the name of an optional, full-featured POSIX and Unix environment subsystem for Microsoft's Windows NT-based operating systems.Interix is a component of the Services for Unix release 3.0 and 3.5...
- MinGWMinGWMinGW , formerly mingw32, is a native software port of the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Binutils for use in the development of native Microsoft Windows applications; MinGW can function either as a cross compiler targeting Windows or as a native toolchain run on Windows itself...
(Minimalist GNUGNUGNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
for Windows) - minttyMinTTYIn computing, mintty is a free and open source terminal emulator for Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows. It features a native Windows user interface and does not require an X server...
(Cygwin terminal) - UWINUWINUWIN is a computer software package created by David Korn which allows programs written for the operating system Unix be built and run on Microsoft Windows with few, if any, changes...