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Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

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Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#61

Post by RexRollman »

4ad wrote: post #54

I find it strange that no one is mentioning UWIN[1], started by David Korn about the same time and with the same goals as Cygwin. I used to use it. I liked the fact that it used the host compiler instead of gcc, plus I preferred the non-GNU tools. Now I'm using Inferno, it works much better. It's not Unix, it's Plan9, but I view that as a plus. Of course cygwin can install all kinds of Unixy tools, like gcc, openssh,…

You run Inferno on top on Windows as an application? I have read that this is possible but I have never seen anyone doing this, not even in a screenshot. If so, what's your opinion of it as an environment?

(By the way, Inferno's implementation reminds me of Niklaus Wirth's Oberon, which could also run as either an application or as an operating system.)

Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#62

Post by RexRollman »

ez77 wrote: post #13

Oh, heretics! How dare they leave ed out of the list [1]? [1] https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/wiki/executables_list

I recently decided to learn ed, as I felt it couldn't hurt to be familiar with it, and I was surprised to see that it wasn't installed in Arch Linux by default.

Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#63

Post by mkl »

jurjenh wrote: post #57
earl wrote: post #7

A somewhat heavier version of cygwin, in which everything will work the way it's supposed to: http://www.centos.org I kid, I kid...

Then there's always colinux - where you can have both, at the same time, without virtualization.

Colinux doesn't run in 64 bit Windows, unfortunately.

Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#64

Post by chalst »

nupark2 wrote: post #30
natesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of Homebrew is that it is modern, small, and simple. Obviously apt is better, but apt also requires that you maintain a large repository of binaries. Homebrew is slow[1], but because it builds from source it is trivial to create a new package. Homebrew packages are just Ruby files. If the project uses Autotools, all you generally need to do is enter the URL, an md5, and the dependencies, then it Just Wo…

Everything you just said (packages are files, simple, uses existing tools for self update) applies to MacPorts too. The only real differences seem to be the use of Ruby, and an attempt to avoid replacing OS dependencies -- even if the replacements are newer. In fact, MacPorts actually supports generating Debian packages and an apt repository straight from its port files. As for Windows, Cygwin already provides binari…

Macports builds something of a sandbox, which from the users point of view is neither small nor simple.

It is easier for the Macports team to make sense of bug reports with a sandbox, however, which is, I assume, why they do it. It is explicitly the reason they forbid installing to /usr/local.

Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#66

Post by chalst »

RexRollman wrote: post #62
ez77 wrote: post #13

Oh, heretics! How dare they leave ed out of the list [1]? [1] https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/wiki/executables_list

I recently decided to learn ed, as I felt it couldn't hurt to be familiar with it, and I was surprised to see that it wasn't installed in Arch Linux by default.

If one has bash as the default shell, why not ex as the standard line-oriented text editor?

Postscript - ex is the version of ed rolled up in vim, which extends the command set of ed. vi, by contrast, handles colon commands by invoking ed externally.

Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#67

Post by morsch »

ez77 wrote: post #56
signa11 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. for example in virtual box you can mount host's directory tree within the vm either in rw/ro mode. from then on, things are seamless.

I thought Windows' default filesystem (NFS?) was not safely writeable from Linux. Does your method involve changing Windows' filesystem?

Windows default filesystem is NTFS and it's pretty safe to write. I certainly wouldn't set up something like a server which relies on this, but for personal use or even a development workstation I think it's fine.

I guess it might be a good idea to first check the disk using Windows after something like a power loss while the NTFS partition is mounted. But apparently NTFS-3G (one of the NTFS drivers) can also use the journal to recover the filesystem after a power loss.

Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#69

Post by 4ad »

RexRollman wrote: post #61
4ad wrote: post #54

I find it strange that no one is mentioning UWIN[1], started by David Korn about the same time and with the same goals as Cygwin. I used to use it. I liked the fact that it used the host compiler instead of gcc, plus I preferred the non-GNU tools. Now I'm using Inferno, it works much better. It's not Unix, it's Plan9, but I view that as a plus. Of course cygwin can install all kinds of Unixy tools, like gcc, openssh,…

You run Inferno on top on Windows as an application? I have read that this is possible but I have never seen anyone doing this, not even in a screenshot. If so, what's your opinion of it as an environment? (By the way, Inferno's implementation reminds me of Niklaus Wirth's Oberon, which could also run as either an application or as an operating system.)

Yes! Inferno can run both native, on the bare hardware, or hosted under Unix, Windows or Plan9. Most people run Inferno hosted because it's easy and you can benefit from the host operating system services as well.

For me, it's the best environment because I can have Acme (the editor), Plan9 name spaces and the Plan9 tools which I am most familiar with on any operating system I use. You can use either full Inferno [1] or Acme SAC [2]. Hosted Inferno runs in a window, which feels awkward to me, so I use Acme SAC which is a native host window and I run the shell inside Acme. Acme is the only graphical Inferno program I care about anyway.

[1] http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/downloads.html

[2] http://www.caerwyn.com/acme/

Re: Gow – The lightweight alternative to Cygwin

#70

Post by soapdog »

4ad wrote: post #69
RexRollman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You run Inferno on top on Windows as an application? I have read that this is possible but I have never seen anyone doing this, not even in a screenshot. If so, what's your opinion of it as an environment? (By the way, Inferno's implementation reminds me of Niklaus Wirth's Oberon, which could also run as either an application or as an operating system.)

Yes! Inferno can run both native, on the bare hardware, or hosted under Unix, Windows or Plan9. Most people run Inferno hosted because it's easy and you can benefit from the host operating system services as well. For me, it's the best environment because I can have Acme (the editor), Plan9 name spaces and the Plan9 tools which I am most familiar with on any operating system I use. You can use either full Inferno [1]…

Thanks for the links. Can you elaborate more on what you like about Acme? I am not bashing it, I just want to know, never used Acme.
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