Babun – A new Windows shell • Hacker News Board

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#11

Post by qwerta » Tue, May 13, 2014, 10:45 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #2

I was actually expecting a new GUI shell for the recent windows versions. I used to run bb4win in the w2k times, but it doesn't look like win 7/8 have any popular alternative shells available. Does anyone know of those?

There is nothing wrong with current shell. Who needs window resize or copy&paste anyway?

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#12

Post by math0ne » Tue, May 13, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #2

I was actually expecting a new GUI shell for the recent windows versions. I used to run bb4win in the w2k times, but it doesn't look like win 7/8 have any popular alternative shells available. Does anyone know of those?

Blackbox is working on windows 8. If you head over to deviant art you can find some shots of working setups on the Blackbox group: http://blackboxdesktop.deviantart.com/

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#13

Post by math0ne » Tue, May 13, 2014, 10:47 PM UTC

DaemonHN wrote: post #7

viraptor wrote: post #2

I was actually expecting a new GUI shell for the recent windows versions. I used to run bb4win in the w2k times, but it doesn't look like win 7/8 have any popular alternative shells available. Does anyone know of those?

I was also expecting a new GUI shell and used to run GeoShell and Litestep. I got somewhat excited and hoped that there might be a resurgence in the popularity of Windows shells but it seems like that time is gone for good now. If I recall correctly, the Windows XP release managed to stabilize the Explorer shell quite a bit (compared to Win9x) which in turn decreased the demand for a lightweight, stable and customiza…

I believe lightstep is also working on windows 8 now.

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#14

Post by malkia » Tue, May 13, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

I tend to install absolutely the whole cygwin (32-bit and 64-bit in two different folders). Always use the stable, and install the debug, since it's easier this way. It's quite big (~20 gb each install - but that includes all debug symbols).

I'm using all the time Far Commander calling cygwin commands. Some of the commands are not "callable" since I'm not running Far Commander through bash.exe/sh.exe (it's possible but a bit unstable). For such cases when the cygwin command does not have .exe/.com/.bat extension I run it "sh -c cmd blah", or create shortcuts for most used commands:

  gitk.cmd (somewhere in my PATH)

  @start /B ash -c "DISPLAY=:0 exec /usr/bin/wish /usr/bin/%~n0 %*"

I also have this in the Startup folder:

  startxwin - 1>nul 2>nul

Tig is also awesome for git browsing.

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#15

Post by jhasse » Tue, May 13, 2014, 11:09 PM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #4

Lost me at "based on Cygwin". Yes Cygwin brings some unix goodness, but it has enough warts that I avoid it.

Can you give some examples?

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#16

Post by felipesabino » Tue, May 13, 2014, 11:10 PM UTC

"on top of Cygwin"... So does it mean still no copy&paste?

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#17

Post by agorabinary » Tue, May 13, 2014, 11:33 PM UTC

I don't mean to sound like a prick, I'm just genuinely curious as to why someone would use windows for some CLI work. Are you using some software that isn't available on more developer-friendly operating systems?

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#18

Post by ihnorton » Tue, May 13, 2014, 11:40 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #15

jmspring wrote: post #4

Lost me at "based on Cygwin". Yes Cygwin brings some unix goodness, but it has enough warts that I avoid it.

Can you give some examples?

http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.using.bloda

(not really Cygwin's "fault" per se, but it is what it is)

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#19

Post by runjake » Tue, May 13, 2014, 11:41 PM UTC

agorabinary wrote: post #17

I don't mean to sound like a prick, I'm just genuinely curious as to why someone would use windows for some CLI work. Are you using some software that isn't available on more developer-friendly operating systems?

1. Because they prefer Windows.

2. Because their company has standardized on Windows desktops and/or hardware.

3. Because some people might actually believe and have good evidence that Windows is a more "developer friendly" operating system for their needs.

Re: Babun – A new Windows shell

#20

Post by Lifescape » Tue, May 13, 2014, 11:41 PM UTC

agorabinary wrote: post #17

I don't mean to sound like a prick, I'm just genuinely curious as to why someone would use windows for some CLI work. Are you using some software that isn't available on more developer-friendly operating systems?

My situation is I have a Windows machine I game on and don't like rebooting all the time to get into my arch partition. It'd be nice to have a good shell to do some dev work on if I wanted to fix something really quick without rebooting. Right now I just boot up a vm and work on that. Shells I've used in the past (ConEmu, Console 2, Cmder) have all been good, but not good enough.