Which cygwin packages should i install

So, what are my requirements? Have you heard of Cygwin? Cygwin is great. Cygwin is unix on Windows. Sometimes I think Microsoft should just buy Cygwin, and make it a first-class citizen of Windows. Get the installer here. I learned how to install it here. I like to write shell scripts with it python-setuptools — people use this when distributing their python stuff rsync — handy tool for synchronizing stuff from one place to another especially over the internet.

I use it to create cls see my update lower down. I have been using posh-git inside Windows Powershell, The thing I like about posh-git is that it gives you an overview of your repository status at your command prompt, like so:. Telling you which branch you are on, and giving you a summary of both tracked , and un-tracked changes. However, this can make my prompt quite slow in large repositories, because it takes quite a while to run the script which generates it, but I still want something like it in cygwin.

What I have found, although less detailed than posh-git, is nice and quick, and it gives me a simple indicator of what I need to do with my repository. There is a script called git-prompt. Now edit your. The top of the git-prompt. We already installed bash-completion and now all we need to do is add a script that supplies completion functions for git.

To download the scritpt:. Open up your. The Local Package Directory is the cache where setup. The cache must not be the same folder as the Cygwin root. Within the cache, a separate directory is created for each Cygwin mirror, which allows setup. After installing Cygwin, the cache is no longer necessary, but you may want to retain the packages as backups, for installing Cygwin to another system, or in case you need to reinstall a package.

The Direct Connection method of downloading will directly connect. If your system is configured to use a proxy server or auto-configuration scripts, the Use System Proxy Settings method uses those settings. Since there is no way of knowing from where you will be downloading Cygwin, you need to choose at least one mirror site.

You can select multiple mirrors by holding down CTRL and clicking on each one. If you have the URL of an unlisted mirror for example, if your organization has an internal Cygwin mirror you can add it. For each selected mirror site, setup. For details about the format of this file, see the setup. The chooser is the most complex part of setup. Packages are grouped into categories, and one package may belong to multiple categories assigned by the volunteer package maintainer. Each package can be found under any of those categories in the hierarchical chooser view.

By default, setup. However, this will not include many commonly used tools such as gcc which you will find in the Devel category. Since setup. In particular, everything in the Base category is required. You can change setup. Click on the View button and it will rotate between Category the default , Full all packages , and Pending only packages to be installed, removed or upgraded.

What packages should I install with Cygwin to make it not bloated but also have everything I would need as a developer? Asked 12 years, 10 months ago. Active 3 years, 10 months ago. Viewed 53k times. Improve this question. Thomas Owens Thomas Owens k 94 94 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. That said, here's a list of common packages you might want to install, whether via the installer or via apt-cyg : bash-completion lynx to install apt-cyg , wget and curl vim hg , git , and maybe svn and git-svn diffutils and patchutils python and python3 There's tons of Cygwin setup posts out on the internet too, I referenced this one.

Improve this answer. First option: don't worry about "bloat" - install everything that comes to mind. When installing packages for the first time, the setup program does not install every package. Only the minimal base packages from the Cygwin distribution are installed by default, which takes up about MB.

Clicking on categories and packages in the setup program package installation screen allows you to select what is installed or updated. Individual packages like bash , gcc , less , etc. The setup program tracks the versions of all installed components and provides the mechanism for installing or updating everything available from this site for Cygwin.

Once you've installed your desired subset of the Cygwin distribution, the setup program will remember what you selected, so re-running it will update your system with any new package releases.