Cygwin, a Linux-like Environment for Windows

Cygwin allows you to install and run many standard Linux applications on Windows.

To install Cygwin, go to cygwin.com and click on Install Cygwin now. After a couple of questions that can be answered with the default value (just click on Next), you are presented with a list that allows you to Select Packages to install.

Each package available is presented with several important fields:

Category

specifies what kind of application it is (possible values are Devel, Editors, Math...)

Current

Specifies if the package is installed and if it is, what is the installed version of the package

New

Specifies what do you want to do with this package: Skip for not installing this package, or specifies the version of the package you want to install. You can change that by clicking on the arrow near the Skip

Package

Specifies the name of the package and a description

Various packages are needed for specific goals.

C++ development

• GCC compiler: select Devel/gcc-g++
• GDB debugger: select Devel/gdb
• GNU make utility: select Devel/make
• XEmacs editor: select Editors/xemacs

Additional Utilities

• zip: select Archive/zip
• ssh: select Net/openssh
• links Text mode browser: select Web/links

Numerical Computation

• GNU Octave: select Math/octave*
• X11 Window System: select X11/xorg-x11*
• XEmacs Text Editor: select Editors/xemacs