Paul, On Tuesday 28 February 2006 03:35, Paul Cartwright wrote:
On Tue February 28 2006 3:45 am, Randall R Schulz wrote:
You downloaded "it?" Cygwin? It's just like a Linux distribution insofar as it comprises a great many packages totaling hundreds of megabytes of tarballs formatted for the Cygwin installer (which is what I suspect your downloaded, from the main page of cygwin.com).
you are correct, I downloaded the setup.exe from cygwin.
If you did just download the installer, beware that you've got a big download ahead (which must be preceded by package selection, unless you're willing to just go for the whole huge set of packages).
how do you select these packages, and what do I look for/need/want to install for ssh/sftp ?
Run the installer, step through the wizard-style interface and a few screens in (after mirror selection) you get a hierarchical (two-level) list of packages. The Cygwin installer leaves something to be desired, but it's the only feasible way to install it. You'll have to look in the Networking or Server categories (I don't know the categories by memory, but it will be obvious which categories might hold the SSH client and server software). The installer knows about dependencies, so pick what you want and let it install whatever else is required. Cygwin can interface with the Windows service subsystem so your SSH server runs automatically upon system start-up without any manual action on your part. If you're running a server (want to log in there via SSH), then this is a good choice. Cygwin has its own mailing list (of course) where you'll find very much the same kind of spirit of tolerance and forgiveness you've come to know and love here in the SuSE-Linux-E list!
Cygwin is quite good and the only way to make Windows usable to those of the Unix / Linux ilk such as myself. I immediately install it on every Windows computer I must use on an ongoing basis.
once I get it "installed" and working I'll have a better idea what you are talking about:) kinda hard to think about *NIX on a gates box..
To a first approximation the Cygwin "experience" is much like the Linux experience. The core of Cygwin, its DLL, creates a POSIX emulation interface based upon the Windows kernel. With that available, things like the Gnu tools and other open-source (Linux) packages can be ported in a relatively straightforward manner. There are some visible seams (path name and PATH variable syntax being salient ones) but for the most part once installed and configured (configuration is pretty minimal) you can open a BASH (or other common) shell and run all the commands you're accustomed to using under Linux.
-- Paul Cartwright
Randall Schulz