Installing Cygwin How to install Cygwin This page shows a step-by-step example of installing Cygwin - a version of Unix that runs under Windows. With it you can do many of the things that can be done with Linux under Windows. My example PC was running Windows NT 4, however it should work with minor differences under Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP. Requirements I found the install required about 100 Mb to hold the downloaded files, plus a further 400 Mb for the uncompressed Cygwin directory.

This is the home of the Cygwin project. Cygwin version. The most recent version of the Cygwin DLL is 3.0.1. Installing Cygwin. Install Cygwin by running setup-x86_64.exe (64-bit installation) or setup-x86.exe (32-bit installation) Support for Cygwin.

In other words, have at least 500 Mb free. You would also need extra disk space to actually do something useful (eg.

Compiling), so probably at least 600 Mb would be useful. Steps • Go to the site. • Click on the 'install Cygwin now' button (circled). • Choose to run the program (setup.exe) from its current location. • You may get a warning about a certificate - you can ignore that.

• Click on Next to start the ball rolling. • Install from Internet. • Choose an install directory. I chose D: Cygwin however the default of C: Cygwin may be suitable, providing you have around 400 Mb free on C. • Choose where the downloaded files are to go. I chose D: Cygwin_Install because I had more disk space free on D. • Select your connection type.

• Choose a site for downloading from - preferably one near to you. • There will be a pause while it reads the available packages from this site - then you will see the ones it is offering you. To do compiles you need a few extras, so click on the '+Devel' tree (circled). • Click (once) on the word 'Skip' for each item in the Devel branch to select it (some will select others, so only click on them if they still show 'Skip'.

I checked them all, however this made quite a big download. You may want to get a subset, and if that doesn't work, do it again to get some more. At the very least you would want: • binutils • gcc • gdb • make • mktemp There is more than a screenfull, so scroll down until you have done them all. • I also chose the cygwin-doc under the 'Doc' branch. • I also chose some editors.

• And some extra shells. • When you have done selecting things, click Next and the downloading will start - this might take quite a while, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

• After everything is downloaded (ie. About 100 Mb) then it starts decompressing the files into your Cygwin directory - this can take quite a while also, maybe half an hour or more. • This shows the size of my download directory. • And this is the size of the Cygwin directory. • Create icons on the desktop and Start menu, and Finish up.

• All done - you will probably need to restart Windows to use the latest files. • Once you have done that you can double-click the 'Cygwin' icon on your destktop to start up the Cygwin shell. Comments to Page updated on Wednesday, 15 December 2004.