Slashdot Mirror
TCSH on Windows XP?
An unfortunete XP user... asks: "I find myself having to use a Windows XP Pro machine at work, but I want to convience of tcsh... command.com just doesn't cut it for what I am doing. Has anyone ported a *NIX shell (csh, tcsh, or even sh) to Windows XP Pro?" How well does Cygwin handle the Windows XP environment?
you can do bash in cygwin.
This is more of a hint than a full fledged tcsh.
You know how you can transverse directory in almost every shell in Linux and Unix by using tab?
Well in Windows XP (And maybe others) you can do this too.
However, you have to use cmd.exe and not command.com, and you can happly cd \wi\sys\inf\\\\\
This gets me by.. for now.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Cygwin's bash runs passably well. However, I can't really recommend cygwin due to the basic conflicts between Unix and Windows conventions. Most Unixes have case-sensitive filenames, for instance, but Windows doesn't. And there's no clean mapping of Unix permissions to NTFS ACLs. Cygwin's nice, and I keep it around for a few things, but personally I get frustrated when I run up against things that are almost but not quite like they should be.
On the other hand, if you're just looking for a decent command shell for Windows, you can't do much better than 4NT from JP Software. 4NT is compatible with 'cmd.exe', yet adds a whole bunch of features reminiscent of a good Unix shell. I've been a big fan of 4DOS/4NT for quite a few years.
Oh, and don't forget to download Perl, Python and/or Tcl from ActiveState.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
If you look here, you'll find all the software that Cygwin offers. This includes shells like ash, bash, and yes, tcsh. It also includes all development libraries, so you shouldn't have any trouble compiling something else like zsh either.
Another option -- and I can't recommend this highly enough -- is eshell for emacs. It's the best interactive shell I have ever used (by a long shot, and I've used many), and it's especially nice on NT/Win2k/XP because emacs is an infintely better terminal environment than the standard command windows you have to run cmd, tcsh, or bash in.
Eshell is so good that I can see myself giving up emacs as an editor and keeping it for the shell. And that's saying something.
The above port of tcsh would be my next choice, followed by Cygwin's bash. You'll want Cygwin so you can have the full set of commands under eshell anyway, but bash isn't as well integrated with Windows as eshell and the tcsh port.
Cygwin works just fine in XP. I use it daily both at home and at work. The TCSH works well also. I prefer to use BASH myself, but to each his own. Just be sure to select *all* the packages to install them during setup. Yes. This means you have to click the mouse to a version number over and over and over again. Then after the post-install scripts finish running, run setup again to get all the version updates. It sounds silly, but after mass installing this thing, I've found it to be reliable. Also, keep a copy of the setup.exe in the root of the cygwin directory, since you just have to double click it and select a mirror to check and upgrade all your packages.
/cygdrive/c/ windows
/cygdrive/d/ d-drive
To gain access to your windows drives under the cygwin shell, just map a link to the drives like this:
ln -s
ln -s
That's it! Enjoy!
I personally have my laptop dual booting between w2k and linux and use cygwin very heavily while in the windows world.
:-)
However, with the release and popularity of Mac OS X that may be a viable avenue for moving unix onto the desktop. (I believe the default terminal shell on OS X is bash
With the addition XonX it can even work with other unix boxen. And the interface looks really cool!!! A bsd-like environment with an outstanding interface.
Let's face it. It will be 2-3 years before linux might become viable on an average user's desktop, not to mention persuading upper management. For now linux and bsd will probably remain on the developers' and advocates' desks.
The Mac culture and commercial support is very well established. The linux, bsd, and mac communities have a lot to gain from cooperation and shared experiences.
Now if they would only ship macs with 3+ button mice . . .
No need for cygwin.
Find unixutil here.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
There is a native Zsh port for win32 that works very nicely (case insensitivity, path translation, etc) and doesn't require Cygwin. Zsh itself is more powerful than tcsh and although it's a sh-like shell (in the family of ksh and bash) it has lots of c/tcsh-like feature to help ease the transition.
Personally I can't stand the Cshell, if you're into Korn (the shell not the band!) you could do a lot worse than getting work to buy the MKS Toolkit, it also comes with a load of other unixalike tools
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Go to www.kornshell.com and download the source and compile. The Korn shell will then function as a drop-in replacement for cmd.exe.
There are also dozens of commercial Unix shells, including TCSH available in native NT binary form.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Hah, followed the google link and this thread is at the top ;-)
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?