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I use Interix (see http://interopsystems.com/ for more info) on Windows. It uses POSIX compatibility built into the NT kernel, reducing the levels of indirection. Most CLI apps work fine, although you'll need to compile anything the (rather limited) repository doesn't have. However, since GCC and the general build tools are included, this is pretty easy. Simple X apps, such as gvim or fvwm, also work well (an X server is included with the software bundle). Konsole... I don't know about that. QT is in the repo, but you'd have to compile the core of KDE from scratch.

You can, however, use a Windows CLI window running bash (or an Xterm if you prefer). If it's the shell you want, that works quite well.

So just how DO you get a bash prompt to appear on a Windows box?

• I do use Linux, but I don't always want to reboot just to run a bash script or compile a tarball that requires a Unix-like environment.
• I can, from the shell (bash, though I have a few others as well), run Win32 programs as well, including piping or redirecting their output. This even works with popen() or system() calls.
• It's native to the system, and probably runs faster that cygwin (no syscall interpretation layer).

For 2000 and XP, you want Windows Services for Unix or SFU. The download includes a complete - though basic - POSIX environment, a working GNU build toolchain (and yes, sources for all GPL code), and NFS server and client abilities. You shouldn't need to do anything except run the self-extracting download archive and run setup.exe. The installer will provide options to enable setuid and case-sensitive behaviors in the filesystem used within the subsystem, which should be used as a number of programs need them. The version of Perl included with the installer is obsolete and probably not worth installing; I'll get to that in a sec.

For Server 2003 and Vista, you must first enable the Windows component called the Subsystem for Unix Applications (SUA). This can be done by going to the (Add/Remove) Programs control panel - there's an option on the side for enabling Windows components. In Vista at least, you can also enable NFS and Unix-style printer connectivity here. You will then need to install the Utilities and SDK for the SUA, which is available for Vista/Longhorn and for Server 2003. On Vista there will be an additional install option to enable su-to-root behavior, required for programs like sudo - this option is important because by default, the Administrator account is disabled in Vista and privilege escalation is achieved through UAC. Although UAC can be used to start a Unix shell as root/admin, it cannot be used to change a shell's permissions while it runs. If you install sudo this becomes possible.

In all cases, you will get two Unix shells, the Korn shell and the C shell, in your start menu. Either one will start the subsystem and run a login process that creates the necessary environment variables and such. However, there are a few notable lacks. One of them is that while x11r5 and x11r6 client libraries are installed (with the r6 libraries used by default), there is no X server. Thus far I haven't managed to port x.org to Interix (the name of the subsystem "OS") so I use a win32 X server, specifically xming which runs on everything including Vista. The second major lack is a package manager or any software beyond the most basic requirements. For resolving this issue there are a couple options; the two I have tried are InteropSystems and NetBSD pkgsrc.

Both provide a good number of commonly used programs, and support the Interix platform. However, there are some major differences: InteropSystems primarily distributes binaries, with an eye to very easy package management and rapid usability. It also integrates better with Windows, doing things like adding a Start menu link for the Bash shell if you install their package. There is a fairly good forum for assistance and mostly it's a very easy out-of-box experience. However, their package tree is somewhat limited, and installing older versions of some libraries is trickier than it might be. They suuport all versions of Interix, from 3.5 (XP-era SFU) up to 6.0 (Vista's SUA). NetBSD's pkgsrc, on the other hand, is mostly source-based (although there are some pre-built packages for Interix; roughly as many as InteropSystems has, in fact). It takes longer to compile from source, and the initial download is hefty. However, a much wider selection of packages is available (although there's no guarantee they'll all work; indeed some, such as the X server, are flagged to not even attempt to build in Interix) and the packages are presumably optimized at least somewhat for your system during compilation. It's harder to find the right packages at times, though, and I have yet to get even the source-based boo

Yep, that's one bang up set of tools. Not even SSH. Telnet. Yep, keeping up with the times. Real UNIX integration there.

But who runs this?

Either way, that article is virtually irrelevant to today's systems other than to point out the pThread issue, and that MySQL does/did have issues on OSX.

Or whatever it is renamed!

In Vista, it will ship as a regular component of the Pro and Enterprise versions.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/ unix/sfu/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=896c9688-601b-44f1-81a4-02878ff11778&Displa yLang=en

Get Bash, OpenSSH, BSD pkg_tools and the GNU toolchain here:
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse.htm

Oh, and if you want MS's fast compiler, as opposed to GNU's portable one - then this is free. Add an environment variable, and cc calls this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualC/ default.aspx

What makes Cygwin better is the ample userland where wider and better supported range of 3rd party program packages built into the default install than SFU.

Now if pkgsrc fixes that issue, I might switch over more.

Hardly shocking information since it was announced back on April, 26, 2005 in the Interix Forums (http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum). So this has been known *publicly* for over 4 months now with a lot more detail than is in the other articles. The link is http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum/tm.aspx? m=5623

The real story is not that SFU is ending, but rather that it is becoming part of the regular distribution. Since January, 2004 SFU version 3.5 has been available as a free download from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu) with no restrictions, etc. So this change has been expected for some time.

Complaints in other posting about "missing" applications are pretty hollow: two compilers are available (gcc 3.3 and MSVC {a free version of MSVC is available}, OpenSSH, bash, zsh, etc. They can be picked up freely from the Interix Tools site http://www.interopsystems.com/tools.

Hardly shocking information since it was announced back on April, 26, 2005 in the Interix Forums (http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum). So this has been known *publicly* for over 4 months now with a lot more detail than is in the other articles. The link is http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum/tm.aspx? m=5623

The real story is not that SFU is ending, but rather that it is becoming part of the regular distribution. Since January, 2004 SFU version 3.5 has been available as a free download from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu) with no restrictions, etc. So this change has been expected for some time.

Complaints in other posting about "missing" applications are pretty hollow: two compilers are available (gcc 3.3 and MSVC {a free version of MSVC is available}, OpenSSH, bash, zsh, etc. They can be picked up freely from the Interix Tools site http://www.interopsystems.com/tools.

Hardly shocking information since it was announced back on April, 26, 2005 in the Interix Forums (http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum). So this has been known *publicly* for over 4 months now with a lot more detail than is in the other articles. The link is http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum/tm.aspx? m=5623

The real story is not that SFU is ending, but rather that it is becoming part of the regular distribution. Since January, 2004 SFU version 3.5 has been available as a free download from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu) with no restrictions, etc. So this change has been expected for some time.

Complaints in other posting about "missing" applications are pretty hollow: two compilers are available (gcc 3.3 and MSVC {a free version of MSVC is available}, OpenSSH, bash, zsh, etc. They can be picked up freely from the Interix Tools site http://www.interopsystems.com/tools.

I love my Mac at work, but I use Win2k at home. Have you tried Windows Services for UNIX? Intertix used alot of OpenBSD code in SFU, and they say it runs natively rather than through a system call emulator. However, there are not as many UNIX utilities available for SFU as for cygwin. Some additional tools are available in the Tool Warehouse

Everything supports save as PDF through printing interface. No need to use Acrobat.

I love being able to save anything to PDF, but it bugs me that Preview doesn't seem to let you fill in PDF forms. Also, you can't edit PDFs in Preview; but hey, I guess it's "free".

You can run BIND 9 as the DNS on Windows machines instead of using the Windows DNS. Then you can run your DNS just like you do on Unix machines. Then the Windows DNS problem is solved. The faith in the BIND 9 DNS is a lot higher than the Windows DNS. And if there is a problem with BIND 9 I'm sure that a fix is going to be made available a *lot* faster and will be installable on older Windows OS's too.

You can run BIND 9 on Windows using Interix (part of SFU): a BIND 9 binary package is available at http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/
There's likely a cygwin port of BIND 9 too.

If you go to http://www.interopsystems.com you can download GIMP for MS's Services for Unix. It's not a Win32 port, but POSIX on the NT kernel is close enough.

That's why SFU isn't built on top of Win32, but the kernel's native API, which does fork() just fine. So does SFU; it uses the native API.
The NT kernel was designed from the beginning to support different environments, including POSIX and Win32. Each environment subsystem consists of a server process that maintains common state specific to the environment, and a set of client libraries that translate the environment's API to the native API and calls to the server. Win32 is an environment subsystem and so is SFU.

For some reason, cygwin (which debian-win32 uses) insists on using only Win32, so they have to resort to kludges to make certain things like fork() work.
Now that SFU is free, I don't see why debian-win32 couldn't use that instead of cygwin.

As it stands, Interop Systems has the best collection of packages for SFU. Most of the essential stuff is there, but it's still a far cry from Debian's library.

Install Windows Services for Unix and OpenSSH SFU is a POSIX layer that runs on top of the kernel at the same level as Win32. Cygwin runs on top of Win32. More software has been already been ported to Cygwin, but I find that ssh works better with SFU.

doesn't bash also run under Windows?

Dunno if there's a native port, but I've been using it under Interix (aka Microsoft StFU). But I'll probably be lazy and wait for Interop Systems to do their thing, since they don't seem to target it directly.

So use the services for unix download and install bash.. Bash Shell

BTW, the Windows crowd might not be as clueless about BSD as some think: Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) 3.5. Apparently it is based on BSD (OpenBSD according to this OSNews.com thread). Its free now, and in some ways I like it a bit better than Cygwin. When I need to be on a Windows box, I tend to install either SFU or Cygwin. SFU is very handy once you get some of the stuff from the Interop UNIX tools warehouse installed.

Windows Services for Unix
bash, from Unix Tools for Windows

Windows Services for Unix
bash, from Unix Tools for Windows

Try http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse.htm. Not only PostgreSQL, but a load of other stuff too!

Heard about this Redmond, WA based software company called 'Microsoft'? Heard it's been doing well lately, which is why I'm mentioning it here.

You see, among its many different offerings, it sells (yes, you read that right, sells) this thing called Services for UNIX for US$99. For US$20 more, you can order the source code for the program as well.

They decided to improve upon an existing GPL-ed product (with wide acclaim incidentally), and yet are making money out of selling it. A novel concept, don't ya think?

> Microsoft never said that open source was the end of freedom. They said that about the GPL, but not BSD.

Which is probably why they distribute ao. gcc in one of their products and nicely distribute the source code on cd (for a fee) and on their site (for free) ?

It's funny how Microsoft bad-mouths the GPL

Yeah, funny. Ho, ho. Bloody hilarious. Nothing at all two-faced about Microsoft, is there?

It still does.

... for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange ...