Six Important Tips for Installing CygWin

Here are six important tips to keep in mind before running the installer:

1. Be aware that when running the installer, a network connection needs to remain active, because part of the installation process is to have the user pick and choose between various command packages, which are then automatically downloaded and installed. So, don’t try to run the installer on a disconnected laptop.
2. Be prepared to choose wisely when asked where CygWin is to be installed. I find it’s a lot easier to work with “system level” tools like this when the folder names are short and simple (without spaces). Thus, I recommend using “c:\sys\cygwin” (or whatever drive letter is appropriate).
3. Before running the downloaded setup.exe program, move it to a permanent location (for example C:\sys\cygwin_installer\setup.exe). The reason for this is setup.exe will build a cache of downloaded modules that you will want to be stored in this permanent location. You will likely run setup.exe again many times in the future (to fetch updates, or add modules).

4. When the installer presents the list of packages that can be installed, many of them will be selected by default. Be very careful not to accidentally uncheck any packages that are checked by default. This especially means the packages in the Base, System, and Utils groups, but also packages in the Graphics, Interpreters, Libs, Shells groups.
5. Be aware that, in many cases, checking one selection automatically causes other selections to be checked as well. However, the opposite is not true. If a “master” selection is later unchecked, the dependent items will remain checked as they are.
6. One of the options that the installer will ask you to select is a default text file type. The choices are Unix/binary and DOS/text. For some reason, the recommended value is UNIX, but this causes no end of grief if you happen to use Windows tools to edit the script files (outside of CygWin).

CygWin File Modes

The list of packages that are available to be installed is long and can be confusing. To start, just go with the defaults. Optionally, you may find some of the packages listed below to be if interest. Note: To “check” or “uncheck” a package actually means to click on the rotating arrows icon under the “New” column. “Skip” means “unchecked”. “Keep” means you already have the latest version of that package installed and want to leave it that way. A version number means that that version will be installed. (Other options include uninstalling, reinstalling, and installing the source code.) In the following snapshot, the util-linux package is being added for the first time, while textinfo is being upgraded and tidy is being left alone.

cygwin package selection Six Important Tips for Installing CygWin

* Games group
o (your choice)

* Gnome group – Gnome provides a graphical user interface to Linux. This is the CygWin version. If you are only going to use CygWin to execute shell scripts, then you do not need a GUI, but if you do want to install a GUI, this is one choice. KDE is another.

* Graphics group
o (leave the defaults) – Be sure not to accidentally uncheck any of these.
o (add more, your choice) – You may find some of the graphics packages that are not checked by default to be useful as well. Include them as you please.
* KDE group – KDE provides a graphical user interface to Linux. This is the CygWin version. If you are only going to use CygWin to execute shell scripts, then you do not need a GUI, but if you do want to install a GUI, this is one choice. Gnome is another.
* Net group
o inetutils
o openssh
o openssl
o ping
* Shells group
o bash – CygWin actually offers the ability to execute different styles of shell scripts. The default is called “bash.” Be sure to leave that checked no matter what.
o (others) – You may have a particular need to install support for other types of shell scripts, but if not leave them unchecked.
* System group
o man – man is short for manual. It’s a utility program that displays the user manuals for other utilities. If it’s not checked by default be sure to check it.
* Text group – The utilities in this group are for processing text files, e.g. truncating them.
o less, more, etc. – utilities for displaying text files one screen-ful at a time.
o tidy – cleans up HTML files
o catdoc – converts a Word document to plain ASCII text (for archival, extraction, indexing, comparison, etc.)
* Utils group
o time – Useful for scripts.
o cygutils – specific utilities that solve interoperability problems between UNIX and Windows

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