JP Vossen on 3 Mar 2010 22:27:21 -0800


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Re: [PLUG] Starting a holy war (MS SFU vs. Cygwin)


> Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:02:27 -0500
> From: "Claude M. Schrader" <plug@claudeschrader.com>
> 
> On 08:48 Wed 03 Mar     , Ed Ackerman wrote:
>> So I have this work supplied laptop running a non-Linux OS. What I want to 
>> do is install either MS Services for Unix or Cygwin. The question is which 
>> one or will both coexist. Any opinions from the group? Is there a group 
>> collective on this?

Given *that* choice, Cygwin, no question.  But that may not be the only 
choice, it depends on what you want to do.  I haven't tried SFU for 
years and don't really trust anything from M$, so take that or leave it.


> There are also two projects which provide native win32 binaries of GNU
> tools. I have no idea which is preferred though
> 
> http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
> http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/

+=5 for UNXUtils
+=2 for GNUWin32

I've posted about these and related tools before (very similar thread) 
so I won't rehash it here except for this.  UNXUtils are stand-along 
EXEs that Just Work.  GNUWin32 and Cygwin require DLLs, installs, 
configuration, and so forth before they work.  Cygwin also bugs me 
(personally) slightly because it's neither fish nor fowl--it's not quite 
Unix but it's not quite DOS either.  For an almost bash-like power see 
http://jpsoft.com/ (no relation) and for lots more details and related 
tools see:
http://lists.netisland.net/archives/plug/plug-2009-05/msg00063.html
http://lists.netisland.net/archives/plug/plug-2007-09/msg00280.html


I do less now, but for a while I wrote a good number of batch files 
(*.bat, or *.cmd) using the UNXUtils and/or ActivePerl one-liners to do 
the work and the batch file just for glue and flow.  Aside from the 
tremendously painful way cmd.exe attempts to implement command 
substitution (i.e., getting output into a variable), it's not that bad. 
  No where near as powerful as bash or as clean (relatively speaking) as 
Perl, but also not even close to as verbose and painful as I find M$ 
Powershell examples to be.

Later,
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|      http://bashcookbook.com/
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
"Microsoft Tax" = the additional hardware & yearly fees for the add-on
software required to protect Windows from its own poorly designed and
implemented self, while the overhead incidentally flattens Moore's Law.
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