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If you were doing this now, I'd say go with Cygwin. It's a normal build of Perl, from perl sources, and you get the whole Cygnus UNIXalike toolkit. it's very good, I even use WindowMaker from Cygwin as my window manager (it looks really cool). ALl of the CPAN stuff just plugs in easily. Same with ActiveState TCL. I use Cygwin tcl/Tk. It works fine.

One thing you might have bumped into was the whole braindead "I only know stuff by filename extensions" that the servers used to do in the early days, before IIS even existested.

> Can you run postgres in windows? no

Actually, yes.
> Can you run the linux XFree86 binaries on windows? no.

Thats true, but why would you want to?

> I for one consider linux to be a LOT better that Windows.

Well, IMHO, they both suck. In some areas Linux sucks less, while in other Windows sucks less. But they both have their quirks and its just a matter of working around them. And *that* is the mark of somebody who really knows his/her shit.

> Can you run postgres in windows? no

Actually, yes.
> Can you run the linux XFree86 binaries on windows? no.

Thats true, but why would you want to?

> I for one consider linux to be a LOT better that Windows.

Well, IMHO, they both suck. In some areas Linux sucks less, while in other Windows sucks less. But they both have their quirks and its just a matter of working around them. And *that* is the mark of somebody who really knows his/her shit.

Then again, the first thing I do with any win32 machine that I have to use is install GNU Emacs, plus all of the Cygwin tools, including XFree86 (Exceed? ReflectionX? Pah!).

That way I get my X sessions tunneled right to my desktop over ssh, I have Emacs for all text editing (and the rest). I only wish I could persuade Gnus to talk to our Openmail servers (which are set up for MS Lookout and ccmail clients - perversely I think I might have more joy in this once we're moved off b0rkenmail and onto M Sexchange!).

Cheers, Mark

My absolute favorite programming IDE ever was Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0; therefore, I'm a sucker for any editor written in TurboVision, like RHIDE or SetEdit.

DOS Edit is still pretty decent in the console; on the GUI side, NoteTab is a notepad replacement on steroids (the "Light" version is free).

If you download Cygwin, you can compile almost any UNIX-y text editor you want, including my favorite--nano.

And if all else fails, Ask Google!

• Go to the cygwin site and click on the "install now" box on the side of the screen. Run the setup.exe program off the site (don't bother to save it somewhere, it gets updated almost weekly).
• Tell it to install from the internet. Choose a mirror. It'll download a list of packages. Choose the Net | OpenSsh package. If you want to run the server, you might also want to choose everything in the Admin section. I also find Net | rsync more useful than the scp that comes with openssh.
• Once the install is complete, fire it up and run ssh-host-config to set up the server. It'll ask you a bunch of simple questions, generate your hostkey, and stick the server in the startup scripts.

Though you do need to be aware of it's security limitations. That's not to say openssh under cygwin isn't a great way to remote admin machines, but you should probably only use it in circumstances where everyone who has access to the machine has legitimate admin privileges. (Of course, if the only person who has access to the machine is you then you needn't worry)

http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_4.html#SEC80

How secure is Cygwin in a multi-user environment?

Cygwin is not secure in a multi-user environment. For example if you have a long running daemon such as "inetd" running as admin while ordinary users are logged in, or if you have a user logged in remotely while another user is logged into the console, one cygwin client can trick another into running code for it. In this way one user may gain the priveledge of another cygwin program running on the machine. This is because cygwin has shared state that is accessible by all processes.

Cygwin is not secure in a multi-user environment. For example if you have a long running daemon such as "inetd" running as admin while ordinary users are logged in, or if you have a user logged in remotely while another user is logged into the console, one cygwin client can trick another into running code for it. In this way one user may gain the priveledge of another cygwin program running on the machine. This is because cygwin has shared state that is accessible by all processes.

• PuTTY is an SSH1+SSH2 implementation. PSCP, an scp-style program for Windows, is also available.

  PuTTY is available under the MIT licence (BSD-like).

  "PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 platforms, written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham, who lives in Great Britain."

• TTSSH (SSH1) is an SSH1-only implementation, by Robert O'Callahan.

  "TTSSH is a free SSH client for Windows. It is implemented as an extension DLL for Teraterm Pro. Teraterm Pro is a superb free terminal emulator/telnet client for Windows, and its source is available. TTSSH adds SSH capabilities to Teraterm Pro without sacrificing any of Teraterm's existing functionality. TTSSH is also free to download and use and its source is available too, with an open source license. Furthermore, TTSSH has been developed entirely in Australia [...]."

• Cygwin (POSIX software on top of Windows)

  OpenSSH (SSH1 and SSH2 protocol) with Cygwin can run on Windows using the portable version of OpenSSH.

• MSSH

  MSSH from the Metropolitan State College of Denver supports Windows 95 and Windows 98, supporting SSH1 protocol.

• OpenSSH for Windows

  Another OpenSSH running on top of Windows..

• Secure iXplorer

  Secure iXplorer is graphical front end to PuTTY's pscp.exe.

• WinSCP

  WinSCP is a scp(1) program for Windows, with PuTTY integrated into it.

• NiftyTelnet 1.1 SSH is an SSH1-only implementation which comes with a scp-style program. Written by Jonas Wallden.

  "NiftyTelnet 1.1 SSH r3 is an enhanced version of Chris Newman's NiftyTelnet 1.1 application which adds support for encrypted terminal sessions using the SSH (Secure Shell) protocol. Please read the included Readme file before distributing this version."

• MacSSH is an SSH2-only implementation.

  "MacSSH is a modified version of BetterTelnet with SSH2 support. [...] The only SSH2 client for MacOS that I could find is a commercial product thats costs more than $100, and it crashes my Mac when closing a session... Since it's best to do things by oneself, here's MacSSH."

As a long-time NT administrator (original NT 3.1 beta tester), no Windows system goes on my network without Cygwin . In recent years, they've added XFree86 4.x (which works flawlessly nowdays), and other goodies like OpenSSH.

And on Win/NT versions (NT, 2K, XP), you can setup OpenSSH in full server mode which is especially sweet for automation. You can find more information on how to configure OpenSSH as a server on NT/2K/XP here.

There is not a week that goes by without me needing something (let alone another user on our local support list) that Cygwin doesn't solve quickly and effectively. Again, that's why its on all my Windows systems by default.

You can download cygwin for free from cygwin.com. It includes both the client and the server for ssh. You can set up ssh as a service that runs even prior to login, so it's the real deal. All drives are accessible through the shell via the invisible /cygdrive/c, /cygdrive/d, etc directory. All the rest is explained on the Cygwin site. I believe commercial support for Cygwin is offered by Redhat, but it's worth noting that they have a very responsive free support list, frequented by all the major developers/porters.

Give it a go. I think you'll be impressed.

...by using cygwin and this very informative site.

1. Newsgroups: Most microsoft technologies have a newsgroup in the microsoft.public.* hierarchy that are read not only by Microsoft employees but by dozens of regular developers who just want to help others who are having problems. I personally monitor microsoft.public.xml and microsoft.public.dotnet.xml where I answer a lot of questions and pass many of those I can't answer to the actual devs who work on the applications and APIs in question.
   
   
2. Online Communities: There are a number of strong online communities where Windows developers congregate to share information, tips and tricks. These range from Microsoft sponsored sites like GotDotNet, ASP.NET, and Windows Forms.NET that are run by MSFT employees who participate actively in these communities to independent sites like 4 Guys from Rolla, Code Project, Dev Hood, DevelopMentor and CodeGuru
   
   
3. Microsoft Websites: Few places beat MSDN as a source of information about Microsoft technologies. By the way, if you are into XML check out my Extreme XML column
   
   
4. Mailing Lists: There are number of mailing lists hosted by various parties about Microsoft technologies. The ones I've seen with the most vibrance have been the DevelopMentor mailing lists and the ASP Friends lists

For the server side use SSH from cygwin and for the client side I really like TTSSH as an extension to Teraterm. It also looks like there is now a TTX SSL and an SSL OTP available too. By the way, all of these have source available.

As a few people have mentioned OpenSSH is supported on Windows via CygWin. What hasn't been mentioned is that OpenSSH supports smartcards through the use of libsectok. I use it with Schlumberger Cyberflex Access cards.

I don't know whether libsectok has been built on Windows before, but it uses the standard /dev/tty interface so it should be too difficult to get working.

Check out cygwin. They have ports of most unix like apps and provide a framework for porting stuff. You might be able to find a solution there.

You can find some more info about it here.

then they'll send me a bunch of free software

The only "free software" that Microsoft distributes is the GPL'd components of Interix, MS's competitor to Red Hat's Cygwin. I'll assume that by "free software" you mean "royalty-free licenses for Microsoft software".

which I can then resell on Ebay.

I don't think so. Microsoft would be more likely to give you a free, non-transferable license to use the software. Given the outcome the last time Microsoft products were offered on eBay, Microsoft Licensing isn't as naive as some Slashdot readers would think.

can you run X windows apps on top of XP?

Yes.

Tab completion is one of my favorite interface inventions ever.

cygwin provides a fairly complete emulation of a unix environment under Windows, including command line completion in several shells.

Alternatively, if you are used to the Windows command line, you can enable command and file completion ( which is implemented but disabled by default!) by editing your registry as follows:

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft
create a new key called 'Command Processor' (case sensitive) if it does not exist
create a new DWORD value in the new key called 'CompletionChar' (case sensitive) with value 9.

Then you will have command and file completion by tabbing. (Presumably you could use a character other than 9 (tab), but I've never tried it.)

It also has OpenSSH and XFree86 port for win32

It's not just a remote control solution...it also allows you to run many applications that would not be available to the Windows platform otherwise. Look here for the full list of currently available packages. I come from a primarily MS shop and we only use cygwin in a couple of places, but when Evolution and Mr. Project become easily available we'll be deploying it much more widely.

• Native GDI Server - Translate X11 graphics calls into GDI graphics calls; currently we just draw to an offscreen framebuffer and transfer updates occasionally. This allows you to utilize the power of your $100+ graphics processor. Most respectable commercial X11 servers for MS Windows use this method.
• Clipboard integration - We have been working on this for a long time. Currently we have a seperate client, called xwinclip, that provides this functionality. We recently added support for passing Japanese text through xwinclip when running on NT/2000/XP.
• PseudoColor for TrueColor visuals - A lot of applications, particularly drawing or CAD programs, require a palette-based PseudoColor visual, while most people run Windows in TrueColor depths of 15, 16, 24, or 32 bit color. We would like to support PseudoColor visuals when our primary visual is a TrueColor visual. Some commercial X11 servers for MS Windows do this.

• Native GDI Server - Translate X11 graphics calls into GDI graphics calls; currently we just draw to an offscreen framebuffer and transfer updates occasionally. This allows you to utilize the power of your $100+ graphics processor. Most respectable commercial X11 servers for MS Windows use this method.
• Clipboard integration - We have been working on this for a long time. Currently we have a seperate client, called xwinclip, that provides this functionality. We recently added support for passing Japanese text through xwinclip when running on NT/2000/XP.
• PseudoColor for TrueColor visuals - A lot of applications, particularly drawing or CAD programs, require a palette-based PseudoColor visual, while most people run Windows in TrueColor depths of 15, 16, 24, or 32 bit color. We would like to support PseudoColor visuals when our primary visual is a TrueColor visual. Some commercial X11 servers for MS Windows do this.

• Native GDI Server - Translate X11 graphics calls into GDI graphics calls; currently we just draw to an offscreen framebuffer and transfer updates occasionally. This allows you to utilize the power of your $100+ graphics processor. Most respectable commercial X11 servers for MS Windows use this method.
• Clipboard integration - We have been working on this for a long time. Currently we have a seperate client, called xwinclip, that provides this functionality. We recently added support for passing Japanese text through xwinclip when running on NT/2000/XP.
• PseudoColor for TrueColor visuals - A lot of applications, particularly drawing or CAD programs, require a palette-based PseudoColor visual, while most people run Windows in TrueColor depths of 15, 16, 24, or 32 bit color. We would like to support PseudoColor visuals when our primary visual is a TrueColor visual. Some commercial X11 servers for MS Windows do this.

Yes it is. If you have an X Display Manager (xdm, gdm, wdm, whatever) running you can use XDMCP to login.

I'm a bigtime fan. Once I started using it, I returned my Exceed license to my corporate software license managing person and suggested the Cygwin/X combination as a very reasonable alternative. I love firing up an X session on my Windows laptop, typing "ssh -X user@hostname" in my xterm, and remotely testing apps running on our UNIX boxes.

I have been using this for about 9 months now for doing xdmcp to a freebsd box running xdm, such as how they suggest. i have found it to be rock solid.

i run the latest server in the server test series. they recently added -nodecoration, which makes the x server use as much of your screen as possible, without any title bar or borders. My xdmcp command line, setup as a shortcut on my win2k desktop, looks like this:

C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\XWin.exe -screen 0 1600x1200 -from spandex -query lycra -once -emulate3buttons -nowinkill -nounixkill -nodecoration -fp "tcp/lycra:7100"

The -fp option is for a font server, so cygwin/xfree86 will get the necessary fonts from the machine you tell it.

HTH

I have been using this for about 9 months now for doing xdmcp to a freebsd box running xdm, such as how they suggest. i have found it to be rock solid.

i run the latest server in the server test series. they recently added -nodecoration, which makes the x server use as much of your screen as possible, without any title bar or borders. My xdmcp command line, setup as a shortcut on my win2k desktop, looks like this:

C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\XWin.exe -screen 0 1600x1200 -from spandex -query lycra -once -emulate3buttons -nowinkill -nounixkill -nodecoration -fp "tcp/lycra:7100"

The -fp option is for a font server, so cygwin/xfree86 will get the necessary fonts from the machine you tell it.

HTH

Actually, though, what I use are Xclients compiled against the XFree86 libraries. The XFree86 X server doesn't yet have a useable multiple-window mode -- that is, one in which XP is your window manager and each program appears in a separate Windows window. <FLAMESUIT>Since what I want is the superior windows UI with the superior GNU utilities power, the separate window mode is pretty essential. Thus I still use eXceed as my Xserver. </FLAMESUIT>

Work on this capability is proceeding; it is, in fact, the top item on the Cygwin/XFree TODO list:

Seamless integration with Windows: Create a Cygwin/XFree86 window manager to display each X client in its own Win32 window. Such a window manager will be a stand-alone client, but it may require some internal modifications to the Cygwin/XFree86 server to allow drawing to be redirected to various Win32 windows, depending on which client is being drawn.

http://tech.erdelynet.com/cygwin-ssh.asp

> it is not possible to cut and paste between X apps and windows apps.

If I'm reading this right, you probably want to try xwinclip.

I've used it on win2k on a daily basis for over a month now. It runs nicely in full screen mode, which you can Alt-Tab out of. You can also run it in a window, but that's just what I prefer. Make sure you run xwinclip too so you can copy and paste between X and Winders. I've tried a couple commercial Win32 X Servers and although this doesn't have some of the fancy features, I find it more stable.

Ok,

1. Install Cygwin. Yeah it's a dumb shitty-ass pathetic installer, and those who built it should be slain and their bodies fed to pigs, but hey, the tools are nice when you are done.

2. Install CVSNT. Easy install, take it all.

3. Do yourself a favor. Add those two to the path. Right click on My Computer, select Properties, click the Advanced Tab, and click on Envionment Variables. Under System Variables, find the PATH statement, and add in the following :
;c:\cygwin\bin;c:\Program Files\CVS for NT

4. While you are in there, add a new System Variable: CVS_RSH and set it to SSH.

Now, it's all set up and ready to use, as long as you know how to use CVS. (an entirely different question).

Now, if you like GUI tools at all I highly recommend the following :

TortoiseCVS -- This can EASILY be setup to use SSH. As a matter of fact, the builds past 0.49 have it all ready to go. Read the docs, and you'll see.

and WinCVS -- Which is the king daddy of CVS Gui Apps for Windows. A bit clunky for my needs.

and Jalindi Igloo -- A SCC API plugin for CVS. What's that? -- It's allows Windows Development tools to use CVS instead of Visual Source Safe (VSS=a plague!). Sweet, simple and kinda nice if you like that kinda thing.

--
Wuff

I second the recommendation for Cygwin; good stuff.

The next time you upgrade your Cygwin installation (run setup.exe again), also pull down the keychain tool. It's a wrapper around ssh-agent, so you only have to enter your passphrase once per session.

Try

ssh -l user hostname command

to ensure you really can run commands remotely. env is a good one; it'll also let you check your PATH on the remote machine:

ssh -l user hostname env | egrep '^PATH='

If cvs isn't in one of the listed directories, set the CVS_SERVER environment variable to the full path name of the cvs command on the server:

CVS_SERVER=/opt/cvs/bin/cvs

Your error message suggests you might be getting some extra cruft as part of the rsh output. That usually means a wordy .profile (or similar) file; hack it until it's silent (e.g., until the env command above only shows environment variable settings and nothing else).

If you think the problem is ssh-related, try:

CVS_RSH='ssh -v -v -v'"

(perhaps with fewer -v options). You may need to wrap that in a shell script. (Good thing you got bash as part of Cygwin, isn't it?)

Cygwin will also set up a bash shell for you. then you can just set all your appropriate environment variables in your .bash_profile, etc, as normal, and use cvs from within the cygwin bash shell. maybe this isn't exactly the solution you were looking for but it's what we've been using here and it seems to work okay.

If only Windows had GCC, then I'd switch.

http://www.cygwin.com/

1) It has The Bat!. I haven't seen a better mailer.

2) I need to be 100% compatible with Word in my school. I don't want to install OpenOffice, StarOfice, and KDE's office to find out which one better supports word.

3) XMMS is great, but soumething always interferes with esd/KDE's sound daemon. Sound usually works, but not all the time.

4) Concerning music, I haven't seen anything on Linux better than MilkDrop. There is a G-Force for XMMS, but it doesn't compile with me.

5) Not every program has RPMs, and I want to keep track of what I have installed.

6) Yes, this is outdated, but I don't have much disk space to upgrade. Gnome is ugly (in my opinion - too squary), KDE 2 is slow and unstable. There hardly is a good browser for Linux - Konqueror has problems with fonts, Mozilla is slow. I'll try to install Mozilla 1.0 when I'll reboot next.

7) I'm too lazy to reboot, and I have Cygwin.

As an end user, I sometimes reboot only for one reason - Cygwin's gdb is buggy. So, Linux for me is just the enviroment that runs ddd without crashing ;).

people should try to make Cygwin better. If it was just a bit faster & just a bit better polished, why would you need a PC emulator?

I'm using Cygwin all the time (too lazy to reboot)...

Because it's *been* ported to Win32. Point your browser to:

http://main.mswinxp.net/~lpackham/smbclient/

Unfortunately, the site seems to be down at the moment . . . here's the Google cache. The package is also mentioned at the Cygwin Contributed Packages Page.

How do I know all this? I asked the same question last week. Thanks to ashpool7 for answering *my* question. Heh.

x3270 is the X version; the 3270 package comes with c3270 also which is the curses version. That's the one to use. It works fine with a default cygwin install. I've already tried it. However not everyone may want to install cygwin, but c3270 runs fine over a telnet/ssh into a UNIX box (from Windoze or any other system), so it's easy to simply set up a single (or several) UNIX boxes for the 10,000 people to telnet/ssh into and run c3270.

The only caveat is the 3270 protocol sucks, and there are many "control" characters like Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, etc that does "clear", and "reset", etc. It's in the 3270 man pages.

If only Windows had GCC, then I'd switch.

Go here, and click "Download Now" on the top right.

Cygwin is a great way for those bound to the evil empire to have access to some powerful developer tools. For those not familiar with Cygwin, it is the inverse of Wine: a complete Unix environment that runs in Windows. Just about any Linux app can be ported to it, and many already have. - gcc - gdb/Insight - Python - Perl - PostgreSQL - Apache - XFree86 - KDE - Gnome ...plus all the shell lovin' you could ever want. Jeff

i'm not sure if this is the sort of software they're looking for, but i found | cygwin to be vital for my sanity in a windows world. definetly a must for UNIX users having to use windows. and NT emacs, of course!

unless... do they want software that windows users can use? :-D

soup

>I prefer Linux and Unix. Made by hackers, for hackers.

OS X was made by hackers too, but for normal human beings. Oh wait, that's Unix too! :)

>Not all computer users look like the folks in the advertisements where everyone is smiling

And they don't have to be. If you hate XP's day-glo interface, change it! Customizing OS X visually isn't as easy, afaik -- please correct me if I'm wrong. Using standard OS options (Folder Options and Display Preferences), you can make it look like Windows 95 if you so choose.

>Microsoft's disgraceful filesystem

NTFS 5 is disgraceful? How?

>and complete neglect of the command line

Cygwin. Services for Unix. MKS Toolkit. XEmacs. I believe even LaTeX is available, although I can't say how good it is since I don't use it.

Here's something random to think about: If Windows is all that bad, how come Windows NT is voted the most productive Java development environment on multiple occasions? These are Java developers, not the mom n' pop set (I know, some will say, they're just as bad :->), after all.

Like Tim O'Reilly said: ``I was recently looking over the shoulder of a very well-known perl hacker as he picked his way through the cascading Windows Start Menu to find a program he wanted to run...''

Maybe, just maybe, you should check out how `power' (couldn't think of a better word) Windows users operate without losing their minds everyday? Maybe buy a book that doesn't treat its readers like dummies?

find, findstr, tab complete in cmd... bah.

just use bash

Funny thing is, it supports more windows features than cmd.exe does. Like file forks. and /dev/clipboard

The only downside to this is that those unfamiliar with modern Unix-like systems might see Cygwin as all that Unix is. I've had some Cygwin users insist to me that Linux really should have a GUI, for example.

So why don't you grab a compiler, Learn to code and make one yourself?

XFree86 runs under Cygwin. It's quite nice. You can find their website here.

The Linux Terminal Server Project is exactly what you're talking about. I've been using it at home here to play around with for a few months now. It's really slick. I have a bunch of my old computers that would otherwise be in the dumpster that are right now serving as terminals. And they're pretty fast, since all the apps run on my big Athlon box.

It works by netbooting from your server. Some kind of bootrom code, either on your network card or on a floppy disk, initalizes the network card. It uses DHCP to find its own IP address, and then it uses TFTP to download a small Linux kernel over the network. This loads up and uses an NFS-mounted root to run an X server on the local computer. The X server connects back to the main server by XDMCP, and you get your XDM/GDM/KDM login window.

The LTSP guys have done a great job packaging this all up. Take a look. And as for your requirement of running it on a Windows box, see Cygwin's XFree86 port to Windows. You can use it to connect with XDMCP. Of course, I don't know why you wouldn't just pop in a bootdisk...

The biggest drawback to this approach is remote access security. Look at that paragraph and how many daemons and services you need to have running. But I imagine that if it was secured well enough, it'd be fine. Actually, there is a way to make this all go over VNC (or VNC with compression). It's not as fast, but at least that's only one TCP port and a lot easier to get by firewalls.

There's a great bunch of guys working on this project. And its nice to be able to connect to #ltsp on irc.openprojects.net and get the lead developers to answer your questions.

Michael F. Robbins

So, if I'm reading this right, it will run Windows CE, and allow you to do remote desktop stuff with a Windows XP machine via Windows Terminal Server. That sounds really nifty, except I don't want to run Windows XP, ever.
Perhaps it could also net-boot and run Linux Terminal Server, instead. Are there any good X Servers for Windows CE? Any GPL'd? I think there is a GPL'd Java one that might run on Windows CE.
I know that VNC runs on Windows CE. While VNC is very slow when connecting to a Windows machine, it is quite fast connecting to a Linux machine. From what I understand, it isn't as fast as Cygwin/Xfree ,but the install is sooooooooooo much easier.

you can do bash in cygwin.