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Cygwin's XFree86 4.2.0 on Windows XP
stock writes: "A interesting and important piece of software on the win32 platform for me has always been X11 server software like
Hummingbird's Exceed, or
Startnet's Xwin32 Professional.
Today i glanced at cygwin's site and found that a complete
XFree86 4.2.0 for Windows XP
can be downloaded now! It shouldn't be hard for newcomers as it features a
setup.exe . The package comes free and is basicly licensed as X style licensed software which runs on cygwin32 which has a GPL license." Looks like this has been out since May -- can anyone who's been using it since then comment on how well it works? Update: 07/07 17:12 GMT by T : haroldhunt (project leader for Cygwin/XFree86) wrote to clarify: "Cygwin/XFree86 runs on all recent consumer and business versions of Windows; as of 2002-05-12 those versions are specifically Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP."
It's funny, but I just saw this slashdot article when I was testing an X desktop from a Windows 2000 client running Cygwin Xfree. I'm sitting here right now, typing.
It works splendidly. Unlike with Hummingbird & Co, you get the exact same feel as regular Xfree with regards to font and small behaviour differences - which is good, since GNOME and KDE is targeted there.
It has some funcitonality lacking (imo - the developers seem to regard this as not being their problem): Cut and paste between X and Windows does not work (although I once saw rumors of an experimental daemon to fix this). Non-US keyboard setups must be loaded manually with xmodmap (while imo, Xfree for Windows should support xkbdb stuff).
In other aspects, it's great! Scroll wheel stuff works perfectly, graphics are fast and stable (better than a recent version of Hummingbird Exceed I tested), etc.
Oh, one more drawback - there seems to be a hard coded limit to the window size that prevents me from letting the X desktop span two windows monitors in multihead setup. This should be easy to fix if one feels inclined, though, I expect.
Otherwise, the product is brilliant. Now I can roll out Linux/FreeBSD desktops cheaply and easily, and make the switch from Windows to GNOME/KDE in small steps for my customers. The killer right now is letting them use Mozilla and Evolution through X from a server located outside the firewall: very secure and virusless (and cheap!) Attachments and saved files are available through a samba share. Oh, and let the server run IMAP (to Evolution) and webmail (ssl) from the outside. People get the same folders abroad and at the office.
I'm telling you, the revolution is here.
-- Daniel, www.copyleft.no
As for UNI*X features not yet available in Cygwin - you mean Gnome ported to win32, do you? At least that what failed the compilation Sawfish and others for me.
Have anyone heard about porting Gnome to win32? How about KDE? I can use Gnome or KDE through X11 net, but how about the case of temporary standalone box? Such win32 port would be a very nice feature then.
Less is more !
Since cygwin's setup program is now idiot proof its about 6 clicks and a bunch downloading later and BAM! X on Xp. Just make a shortcut to the startwinx.bat file in the /usr/X.../bin/ dir and you then become |golden boy|. Ofcourse blast out the line in starwinx.bat that kicks of tvm and get a real window manager ( as if you care, but fvwm is my choice ).
For performance sake I keep to just a simple fvwm2 setup. Not to say Xp is great but I don't see a need to duplicate half of the fancy stuff ( email notifiers, clocks, start menus, yada^3 ) by running KDE or something more ontop of your current Xp rig.
To be honest I think the work the cygwin folks are doing is the most complete solution now for your PC. You now get the power and devel environ of Nix and the hardware compatibility and other features of windows. No more dual boot. No more kernel recompiles just to get a USB flash card reader working. Just point scripts to /cygdrive/d where d is drive letter that windows assigned to your hardware.
Only complaint is the file naming problems that occur when your strike off a DOS program with files as arguments. But not a huge issue. ( Compiling Tcl/Tk scripts using the Windows version of tclpro tools, chokes on the file names ). Other than that perfect!
If you are truly sick... Cygwin does come with glut and glu. I'd like to see someone hack something like q3 for linux inside a cygwin session running on Xp or 2000 or whatever illegal bangkok version of the Microsoft OS your are running.
try { println( SigString ); } catch( Exception e ) { println( 'Who cares?' ); }
The main purpose of Cygwin is to run Posix apps under Windows. And if XFree under Windows is now solid (wasn't, last time I looked, but that was a couple years ago), then we now have all kinds of interesting possibilities for migrating Linux apps to the Windows platform. In particular, it'd be nice to be replace the Windows shell and desktop with one of the many open-source equivalents.
There are, of course, non-Posix Windows shell replacements. But I've never liked any of them as much as I've liked the best Linux desktops: KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment. Add your own favorite to the list.
I've had cygwin running for a long time now, and consider it an indispensible tool when sitting in front of a Windows box.
In fact, its made me less keen to trash the Windows install on the only Windows machine left in my house, since it is now quite functional with Cygwin/XFree86.
Now, how do i replace Windows explorer etc. with XFree86 as the only available interface to my Windows machine?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long