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Gow - A lightweight alternative to Cygwin
- Turbo_hedgehog 11y agoAm I blind or are there no sources for the binaries?
- gnoway 11y agoYou are not blind. There are no sources for the binaries.
- rlaitila 11y agoLooks like the maintainer provides the sources in the release section: https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/releases https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/releases
- kardos 11y agoMost of the sources and binaries are from 2012. That version of bash would have the shellshock bug(s). This project is a Good Idea, but it would be overwhelmingly more useful if it tracked modern versions.
- leni536 11y agoSo binaries in source control, source files in release. I don't know what to write.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoIt appears to be one of those rare (but legitimate) GPL projects which do not disclose publicly viewable source, but should hand it over upon request if they are to obey licensing terms. UnxUtils and DJGPP are other alternatives. Speaking of which, this project has been posted on HN at least 4 times previously. EDIT: No, they appear to be publicly available in Releases, as mentioned by another poster.
- trengrj 11y agoIf Microsoft added these utilities to Windows and included a decent shell it would go a long way to getting developer mind share back from Apple.
- therealmarv 11y agoso true. Well there is Cygwin although it feels sometimes like an alien on Windows IMHO. It is not that Microsoft tried to do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX but it seems not good enough :/
- tracker1 11y agoFYI: these tools install with GitExtensions for windows, and that includes a bash shell. I use it with ConEmu, and it goes a long way towards usability. I also use Clover as a file explorer wrapper/replacement. I usually have a couple browsers, editors/ide, clover and conemu open at all times.. tabbed interfaces are beyond useful. As is having a bash shell (although some things aren't quite the same).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 0x400614 11y agoWhy put the executable in source control without the actual source text files?
- lubos 11y agoOr why put output binaries to source control at all? Who is going to ever clone that? Github has "releases" feature for that which the project seems to be using too (https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/releases https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/releases)
- 0x400614 11y agoYou've expanded my point, which made me reflect on how I communicate. In my mind I did mean what you said, "binaries to source control at _all_"
- acranox 11y agoChanneling my inner stallman. This looks like a lot of GNU utilities for windows, just like the name says. But the title says Linux utilities.
- rlaitila 11y agoMy first post. I wanted to put something up that would spur interesting discussion. I'll be sure to look closer at how I name a submission.
- AlexeyBrin 11y agomsys2 is also a good alternative to Cygwin with slightly more up to date packages than Gow.
- marktangotango 11y agoMsys2 doesn't emulate file permissions, at least not since I checked last. Cygwin does. This saves a lot of hassles when working with version control.
- daveloyall 11y agoCan someone familiar with `UnxUtils` evaluate this and determine the difference? Both are out of date and distributed as binaries... What else? :) Seriously though, if you fork the project and dump the tarballs into a branch, I'll check it out and run make. Or, I'll write a script that runs a bunch of individual makes. Whatever. I like `UnxUtils` (and Gow) but this practice is not sustainable..
- tbyehl 11y agoUnxUtils hasn't been maintained for a dozen years. There is also GnuWin32 which has only been dead for five years. GoW is pretty much the same thing but not abandoned yet. Some things are definitely out of date, I end up pulling curl from elsewhere, but it provides most of the important things and they Just Work. Beats the hell out of using Cygwin.
- statico 11y agoRelated: If you find yourself in a Windows terminal a lot, check out Cmder (http://gooseberrycreative.com/cmder/ http://gooseberrycreative.com/cmder/). It's the only thing keeping me sane when using a Windows console. Cmder is a little slow by default, but faster if you disable the git branch in the prompt. Other people I know use Clink (http://mridgers.github.io/clink/ http://mridgers.github.io/clink/), the library the powers the readline-like portion of Cmder.
- lkjasdoiuqwe 11y agoWhy not mention ConEmu, the best solution? https://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ https://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/
- code_sterling 11y agoBecause that's a very subjective answer. I've had a lot of issues with ComEmu. On several occasions, (I'm speculating that it's been after updates) it seems to completely forget all of my settings, and revert to defaults. It happened several times when I didn't have the time to track down the problem, so I've stopped using it.
- gpvos 11y agoTried it, but it crashes on me all the time.
- baldfat 11y ago
- tmuir 11y agoThe testimonials remind me of infomercials that exaggerate people's struggles to do everyday tasks like cracking eggs or retrieving items from shelves. Who frets about 100MB on their hard drive in 2015, and why wouldn't these mythical users just install only the cygwin packages they need?
- rbanffy 11y agoWhat are the advantages in relation to Cygwin?
- airtonix 11y ago@statico cmder is definitely a great thing for windows, however it's fault buggy due to way it operates. Overall the best long term option is to simply stop developing on windows and start using Linux, docker, mono, nodejs etc. I did this 10 years ago, and the situation on windows still hasn't improved.
- mapunk 11y agoWhat do you mean "due to way it operates?" Can you explain? Also, how does node have anything to do with this discussion?
- ericfrederich 11y agoLol... Bunch of .exe files checked into Github. Seems legit
- aikah 11y agoI personnally use mingw if I need to compile something to C or C++ for windows , and for any serious work , Vagrant and Linux. Cygwin an likes are just horrible and I just don't see the point of these today.
- 0x400614 11y agoNit pick, but, I think it's safe to say you don't compile anything to "C" or "C++", when you're using mingw, you're compiling a "C" or "C++" program to assembly.
- ectoplasm 11y agoNit pick, but plenty of things compile to C / C++. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6498850/programming-languages-that-compile-into-c-c-source https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6498850/programming-lang...
- barrkel 11y agoWhen I get a source tarball and I want to run it on Windows, Cygwin gives me the highest probability of a successful compile; higher than Solaris, for sure, and that's a genuine Unix. YMMV.
- callesgg 11y agoearlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8577359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8577359
- wfunction 11y agoHow's this different from MSYS(2)?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- saboot 11y agoIs there an overview article about the different unix emulators on Windows and how they differ in terms of what they provide, and how they are supposed to be used? Between MSYS, MINGW, Cygwin, Cmder, Clink, Babun, etc. I am just wildly confused in general. I've used linux, I've used windows. Admittedly I am blessed enough to stick with Python but I know that even Anaconda does some msys magic behind the scenes on windows as well.
- rasz_pl 11y agoThey all have something wrong with them. Grep is broken(so old there is no recursive option, or there is one but doesnt work) at least in MSYS, MINGW and Cygwin.
- scw 11y agoNot a direct answer, but I use the Windows port of The Silver Searcher (ag) and it works well: http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/the-silver-searcher-for-windows.html http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/the-silver-searcher-for-...
- Too 11y agoWindows has this built in, it's called findstr, probably some gaps in the feature set compared to ag but it's quite capable.
- barrkel 11y agoRecursive grep works fine in Cygwin. I use Cygwin as my main interface on Windows, while my work machine is Linux. I've been using Linux since 96. There is very little functional difference between terminal-based userland on Cygwin and Linux, with the sole exception of speed; Cygwin syscalls are slow, and forking is to be avoided in shell scripts where possible. Cygwin is a better Unix than OOTB OSX owing to not being stuck on GPL 2.
- cema 11y agogrep is working fine in msys/mingw, and has been for many years. I do not remember if I have ever seen it not having the recursive option there. It has been working for my in Cygwin, too. As well as many other utilities ported from unix to Windows.
- skrebbel 11y agoI really like the idea of gow but it's horribly unmaintained. Check the issue list length. You're probably better off installing Git with the "add gnu utilities to PATH" option ticked.
- ogurechny 11y agoYes. wget 1.11? It's not even funny. I understand author took last GnuWin32 release, but amount of changes in wget related to many things (including adequate https support) since 2008 is too big. Moreover, using cross-platform Unicode-aware tools in (still not really Unicode-aware) cmd.exe will blow up sooner than later on “funny” filenames. As others said, you need proper shell and terminal.
- 0x400614 11y agoHonestly, I'd recommend anyone to just install native GNU/Linux operating system. Getting the awesome, absolutely amazing coretuils to work on Windows seems like swimming upstream.
- brianwawok 11y agoWindows is pretty ok for my gaming box. Nice to also be able to sling some code with it.
- rmyorston 11y agoThis won't be to everyone's taste but if you value 'lightweight' over 'feature-complete' busybox-w32 [1] may be worth a look. It's a port of BusyBox to WIN32, with random code borrowed from GNUlib for stuff that Microsoft omitted. I maintain the most active fork and got into using it when I ported my last employer's software to Windows. This was originally developed in the early 1990s to run on Unix workstations. For portability it used Bourne shell (not bash) and nawk (not gawk). BusyBox allowed them to bundle a single executable with the Windows version that was adequate to run those scripts. Some projects use busybox-w32 to allow a Unix-centric build system to work on Windows. Julia, for example, seems to use it just to get echo and printf. [1] https://github.com/rmyorston/busybox-w32 https://github.com/rmyorston/busybox-w32
- Too 11y ago> * Shell window from any directory: Adds a Windows Explorer shell > window so that you can right-click on any directory and open a > command (cmd.exe) window from that directory. > * Simple install/remove: Easy to install and remove, all files > contained in a single directory in a standard C:\Program Files path. > * Included in PATH: All binaries are conveniently installed into the Windows > PATH so they are accessible from a command-line window. These three bullets seem contradictory, how can it modify explorer context menu and PATH by just adding files in a Program Files directory. Besides, the first bullet is already built into windows explorer without any add-ons, just hold shift while right-clicking and the option will appear.
- farresito 11y agoThe terminal is one of the most painful things about Windows. Every time I give Windows a try (I'm a Linux user) I end up getting sick because of the terminal. The tooling in Windows is in general good.
- RaleyField 11y ago> Shell window from any directory: Adds a Windows Explorer shell window so that you can right-click on any directory and open a command (cmd.exe) window from that directory. That's one of the reasons why I keep virtualbox around on my Windows box. I don't want any integration with the shell, I want applications to be self-contained and not spam on Windows as much as possible.
- smaudet 11y agoYeah, like most other people on here...color me unimpressed. libmingw if you want lightweight, msys if you want an env + mingw, cygwin if you want something with a nicer unix env. No matter what env you have, if its on win it going to suck a bit.
- leni536 11y ago> It is designed to be as small as possible, about 10 MB, as opposed to Cygwin which can run well over 100 MB depending upon options. What's the size of a new cygwin install? Well it can be larger than 100MB, sure. It has lots of packages.
- maxerickson 11y agoAlong sort of similar lines, StExBar adds a few nice features to explorer: http://stefanstools.sourceforge.net/StExBar.html http://stefanstools.sourceforge.net/StExBar.html The regex rename for multiple files is quite nice.