There is only one recommended way to install Cygwin, which is to use the GUI installer "Cygwin Setup". It is flexible and easy to use. You can pick and choose the packages you wish to install, and update them individually. Full source code is available for all packages and tools. More information on using Cygwin Setup may be found at `http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/setup-net.html'.
If you do it any other way, you're on your own! That said, keep in mind that the GUI installer is a "work in progress", so there might be a few difficulties, especially if you are behind a firewall or have other specific requirements. If something doesn't work right for you, and it's not covered here or in the latest development snapshot at `http://cygwin.com/setup-snapshots/', then by all means report it to the mailing list.
For a searchable list of packages that can be installed with Cygwin, see `http://cygwin.com/packages/'.
The Cygwin Setup program is the only recommended way to install Cygwin.
The Cygwin Setup program will prompt you for a "root" directory. The default is `C:\cygwin', but you can change it. You are urged not to choose something like `C:\' (the root directory on the system drive) for your Cygwin root. If you do, then critical Cygwin system directories like `etc', `lib' and `bin' could easily be corrupted by other (non-Cygwin) applications or packages that use `\etc', `\lib' or `\bin'. Perhaps there is no conflict now, but who knows what you might install in the future? It's also just good common sense to segregate your Cygwin "filesystems" from the rest of your Windows system disk.
(In the past, there had been genuine bugs that would cause problems for people who installed in `C:\', but we believe those are gone now.)
Cygwin Setup can be used to install any packages that are on a Cygwin mirror, which usually includes one version previous to the current one. The complete list may be searched at `http://cygwin.com/packages/'. There is no complete archive of older packages. If you have a problem with the current version of a Cygwin package, please report it to the mailing list using the guidelines at `http://cygwin.com/problems.html'.
That said, if you really need an older package, you may be able to find an outdated or archival mirror by searching the web for an old package version (for example, `gcc2-2.95.3-10-src.tar.bz2'), but keep in mind that this older version will not be supported by the mailing list and that installing the older version will not help improve Cygwin.
Unlikely. Unless you can confirm it, please don't report it to the
mailing list. Anti-virus products have been known to detect false
positives when extracting compressed tar archives. If this causes
problems for you, consider disabling your anti-virus software when
running setup
. Read the next entry for a fairly safe way to do
this.
Both Network Associates (formerly McAfee) and Norton anti-virus products have been reported to "hang" when extracting Cygwin tar archives. If this happens to you, consider disabling your anti-virus software when running Cygwin Setup. The following procedure should be a fairly safe way to do that:
setup.exe
and scan it explicitly.
This should be safe, but only if Cygwin Setup is not substituted by something malicious, and no mirror has been compromised.
When using Cygwin Setup for the first time, the default is to install a minimal subset of packages. If you want anything beyond that, you will have to select it explicitly. See `http://cygwin.com/packages/' for a searchable list of available packages.
If you want to build programs, of course you'll need `gcc', `binutils', `make' and probably other packages from the "Devel" category. Text editors can be found under "Editors".
Long ago, the default was to install everything, much to the irritation of most users. Now the default is to install only a basic core of packages. Cygwin Setup is designed to make it easy to browse categories and select what you want to install or omit from those categories. It's also easy to install everything:
This procedure only works for packages that are currently available. There is no way to tell Cygwin Setup to install all packages by default from now on. As new packages become available that would not be installed by default, you have to repeat the above procedure to get them.
In general, a better method (in my opinion), is to:
That depends, obviously, on what you've chosen to download and install. A full installation today is probably larger than 800MB installed, not including the package archives themselves nor the source code.
After installation, the package archives remain in your "Local
Package Directory", by default the location of setup.exe
. You
may conserve disk space by deleting the subdirectories there. These
directories will have very weird looking names, being encoded with
their URLs.
First, make sure that you are using the latest version of Cygwin Setup. The latest version is always available from the 'Install Cygwin now' link on the Cygwin Home Page at `http://cygwin.com/'.
If you are downloading from the Internet, setup will fail if it cannot download the list of mirrors at `http://cygwin.com/mirrors.html'. It could be that the network is too busy. Similarly for an ftp download site that isn't working. Try another mirror, or try again later.
If setup refuses to download a package that you know needs to be upgraded, try deleting that package's entry from /etc/setup. If you are reacting quickly to an announcement on the mailing list, it could be that the mirror you are using doesn't have the latest copy yet. Try another mirror, or try again tomorrow.
If setup has otherwise behaved strangely, check the files
`setup.log' and `setup.log.full' in /var/log
(C:\cygwin\var\log
by default). It may provide some clues as
to what went wrong and why.
If you're still baffled, search the Cygwin mailing list for clues. Others may have the same problem, and a solution may be posted there. If that search proves fruitless, send a query to the Cygwin mailing list. You must provide complete details in your query: version of setup, options you selected, contents of setup.log and setup.log.full, what happened that wasn't supposed to happen, etc.
Most definitely yes! UNIX shells (and thus Cygwin) use the space character as a word delimiter. Under certain circumstances, it is possible to get around this with various shell quoting mechanisms, but you are much better off if you can avoid the problem entirely.
On Windows NT/2000/XP you have two choices:
On Windows 95/98/ME you can create a new user and run mkpasswd, or you can delete the offending entry from /etc/passwd. Cygwin will then use the name in the default entry with uid 500.
When starting Cygwin from Windows, `HOME' is determined as follows in order of decreasing priority:
When using Cygwin from the network (telnet, ssh,...), `HOME' is set from /etc/passwd.
If your `HOME' is set to a value such as /cygdrive/c, it is likely that it was set in Windows. Start a DOS Command Window and type "set HOME" to verify if this is the case.
Access to shared drives is often restricted when starting from the network, thus Domain users may wish to have a different `HOME' in the Windows environment (on shared drive) than in /etc/passwd (on local drive). Note that ssh only considers /etc/passwd, disregarding `HOME'.
Run Cygwin Setup as you would to install packages. In the list of packages to install, browse the relevant category or click on the "View" button to get a full listing. Click on the cycle glyph until the action reads "Uninstall". Proceed by clicking "Next".
Setup has no automatic uninstall facility. Just delete everything manually:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
and/or HKEY_CURRENT_USER
.
It's up to you to deal with other changes you made to your system, such as installing the inetd service, altering system paths, etc. Setup would not have done any of these things for you.
First, are you sure you want to do this? Snapshots are risky. They have not been tested. Use them only if there is a feature or bugfix that you need to try, and you are willing to deal with any problems.
Before installing a snapshot, you must first Close all Cygwin
applications, including shells and services (e.g. inetd, sshd), before
updating cygwin1.dll
. You may have to restart Windows to clear
the DLL from memory.
You cannot use Setup to install a snapshot.
You should generally install the full
cygwin-inst-YYYYMMDD.tar.bz2
update, rather than just the DLL,
otherwise some components may be out of sync. Cygwin tar won't be
able to update /usr/bin/cygwin1.dll
, but it should succeed with
everything else.
cd / tar jxvf /posix/path/to/cygwin-inst-YYYYMMDD.tar.bz2 --exclude=usr/bin/cygwin1.dll cd /tmp tar jxvf /posix/path/to/cygwin-inst-YYYYMMDD.tar.bz2 usr/bin/cygwin1.dll
C:\cygwin\tmp\usr\bin\cygwin1.dll
to C:\cygwin\bin\cygwin1.dll
.
NO. Cygwin Setup cannot do this for you. Use a tool designed for this purpose. See `http://rsync.samba.org/', `http://wget.sunsite.dk/' for utilities that can do this for you. For more information on setting up a custom Cygwin package server, see the Cygwin Setup homepage at `http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin-apps/setup.html'.
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