Lab1: Introduction to Cygwin

Objective:

The objective of this lab is to introduce the students to Cygwin and its installation procedure.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to install Cygwin on Windows with correct configuration.
Students will be acquainted with basic concepts of Cygwin.

About Cygwin:

GNU + Cygnus +Windows = Cygwin

Origin:

It was developed Cygnus Solutions and was acquired by Red Hat. It is released under the GNU General Public License. It is free software. Today it is maintained by employees of Red Hat, NetApp and many other volunteers. [2] Cygwin is a linux like environment for windows and it has a command line interface for windows. It consists mainly of two parts a DLL (Cygwin.dll) which provides a user interface as a POSIX interface and a large collection of tools which give a look and feel of Linux. [1]

Advantages of using Cygwin on Windows:

It is a convenient and Unix-like Shell environment on windows. It also allows users to use some useful Unix software on windows.

What is Cygwin?

Cygwin is not a way to run native linux apps on Windows. You have to rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows. Cygwin is not a way to magically make native Windows apps aware of UNIX functionality, like signals, ptys, etc. Again, you need to build your apps from source if you want to take advantage of Cygwin functionality. [1]

Installation of Cygwin on windows:

To install Cygwin on windows follow the steps given in the tutorial. An Introduction to Cygwin.html The tutorial covers the installation procedure pretty well and has screenshots to help the procedure.
We need to install the rpm package as we may need it during the installation of TinyOS. To select it go in the Utils package and select the rpm package. Click on the toggle symbol to select and install it and click Next.



If you still have questions read the FAQs on Cygwin website. [3]

Common Problems with installation of Cygwin:

Read the information below to solve some common problems with Java on Cygwin. Java_cygwin.html
If you find that some part is not running correctly you can look in the setup.exe log file at /var/log/setup.log.full. Make a backup of this file before running setup.exe again,
You should follow the steps on the Cygwin website page for reporting problems to report any specific problems you may encounter. [5]
Also download the rpm package for Cygwin here as we require it during the installation of TinyOS. Cygwin RPM _ Get Cygwin RPM at SourceForge.net.htm
Note: As of Apr08, Cygwin is not supported on Windows Vista and is known to have some issues still with Windows Vista.

Exercises (20 Points):

1. Run and install any add-on tool for Cygwin using rpm utility and run it successfully.
2. How does Cygwin allow windows users to run Linux