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Microsoft

TCSH on Windows XP? 58

Posted by Cliff from the shells-on-win32 dept.
An unfortunete XP user... asks: "I find myself having to use a Windows XP Pro machine at work, but I want to convience of tcsh... command.com just doesn't cut it for what I am doing. Has anyone ported a *NIX shell (csh, tcsh, or even sh) to Windows XP Pro?" How well does Cygwin handle the Windows XP environment?
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TCSH on Windows XP? More

TCSH on Windows XP?

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  • How well does Cygwin handle the Windows XP environment?

    Why not just install the Cygwin tools [cygwin.com] and find out?

  • Hmmm. www.cygwin.com:

    The Cygwin DLL works with all non-beta versions of Windows since Windows 95, with the exception of Windows CE.

    Hmmm. www.cygwin.com/xfree: (first link returned by a friggen google search).

    Cygwin/XFree86 is a port of XFree86 to the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. Cygwin/XFree86 runs on all recent consumer and business versions of Windows; as of 2002-01-06 those versions are specifically Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.
  • I use it daily on Win2k pro... no problems at all... I'm actually working on compiling gnome under it... have XFree86 working great... presumably it should work just as well under NT 5.1 (XP) but having never had the horror of using XP, I can't speak for what it does right... so far, I haven't found a thing :-)

    I use bash personally in my cygwin enviornment, and am quite happy with it.
  • and just use WinXP to login to Linux.

    or you could try DemoLinux, which will boot and run from the CDrom.

    either solution may piss off your IT department though.
    • VMware [vmware.com] works fine on XP as well... Windows complains at the installation because of some uncertified virtual network card drivers, but it works anyway. And it is cheaper (unless you have an additional box anyway), even if you need to buy additional memory.

  • How about BASH? (Score:3, Informative)

    by TTop ( 160446 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @10:47PM (#3166312)
    you can do bash in cygwin. [cygwin.com]
    • You can do bash or tcsh in cygwin (along with, I suppose, a few hundred other things) (not all shells, of course). If this guy wants to use tcsh, no problem, he can have it.
      Bash is great, I agree, but it isn't the only good shell out there. Tcsh is a great choice too :)
  • ftp://ftp.blarg.net/users/amol/tcsh/

    though I'm sure google could have turned it up.

    • Re:tcsh (Score:5, Informative)

      by cooldev ( 204270 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @11:55PM (#3166552)

      Another option -- and I can't recommend this highly enough -- is eshell [gci-net.com] for emacs. It's the best interactive shell I have ever used (by a long shot, and I've used many), and it's especially nice on NT/Win2k/XP because emacs is an infintely better terminal environment than the standard command windows you have to run cmd, tcsh, or bash in.

      Eshell is so good that I can see myself giving up emacs as an editor and keeping it for the shell. And that's saying something.

      The above port of tcsh would be my next choice, followed by Cygwin's bash. You'll want Cygwin so you can have the full set of commands under eshell anyway, but bash isn't as well integrated with Windows as eshell and the tcsh port.

      • You can use emacs inside cygnus.
        I launch emacs from cygnus: I got a fair environment,
        and I can compile/dev unix code.
        Cygnus has some problems, but for small task you
        can try this solution...
        Another Javaized option is Beanshell [beanshell.org]

  • Well, tabby (Score:4, Informative)

    by seann ( 307009 ) <notaku@gmail.com> on Thursday March 14, 2002 @11:06PM (#3166390) Homepage Journal
    This is more of a hint than a full fledged tcsh.

    You know how you can transverse directory in almost every shell in Linux and Unix by using tab?
    Well in Windows XP (And maybe others) you can do this too.

    However, you have to use cmd.exe and not command.com, and you can happly cd \wi\sys\inf\\\\\
    This gets me by.. for now.

  • Cygwin or 4NT? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chelloveck ( 14643 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @11:44PM (#3166523)

    Cygwin's bash runs passably well. However, I can't really recommend cygwin due to the basic conflicts between Unix and Windows conventions. Most Unixes have case-sensitive filenames, for instance, but Windows doesn't. And there's no clean mapping of Unix permissions to NTFS ACLs. Cygwin's nice, and I keep it around for a few things, but personally I get frustrated when I run up against things that are almost but not quite like they should be.

    On the other hand, if you're just looking for a decent command shell for Windows, you can't do much better than 4NT from JP Software [jpsoft.com]. 4NT is compatible with 'cmd.exe', yet adds a whole bunch of features reminiscent of a good Unix shell. I've been a big fan of 4DOS/4NT for quite a few years.

    Oh, and don't forget to download Perl, Python and/or Tcl from ActiveState [activestate.com].

    • here here. I loved this program to death.

      Eventually I gave up and switched to Linux, but a command shell + gui makes you very speedy. However, I don't know why anyone would install Cygwin just to run a shell. It's nice to have the free x-server, but I've found that it's slower to start than 4NT, and not much more useful if all you want is a commandline.

    • Most Unixes have case-sensitive filenames, for instance, but Windows

      Actually, the NTFS filesystem is case-sensitive. I think it has to be for POSIX compliance though I am not sure that is the reason support for it was built-in. But you are correct -- Windows encapsulates that into the perception of case-insensitivity.

  • If you look here [planetmirror.com], you'll find all the software that Cygwin offers. This includes shells like ash, bash, and yes, tcsh. It also includes all development libraries, so you shouldn't have any trouble compiling something else like zsh either.

  • Cygwin Performance under XP (Score:3, Interesting)

    by agrounds ( 227704 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @01:01AM (#3166708)
    Cygwin works just fine in XP. I use it daily both at home and at work. The TCSH works well also. I prefer to use BASH myself, but to each his own. Just be sure to select *all* the packages to install them during setup. Yes. This means you have to click the mouse to a version number over and over and over again. Then after the post-install scripts finish running, run setup again to get all the version updates. It sounds silly, but after mass installing this thing, I've found it to be reliable. Also, keep a copy of the setup.exe in the root of the cygwin directory, since you just have to double click it and select a mirror to check and upgrade all your packages.

    To gain access to your windows drives under the cygwin shell, just map a link to the drives like this:

    ln -s /cygdrive/c/ windows

    ln -s /cygdrive/d/ d-drive

    That's it! Enjoy!
  • I personally have my laptop dual booting between w2k and linux and use cygwin very heavily while in the windows world.

    However, with the release and popularity of Mac OS X that may be a viable avenue for moving unix onto the desktop. (I believe the default terminal shell on OS X is bash :-)

    With the addition XonX [sourceforge.net] it can even work with other unix boxen. And the interface looks really cool!!! A bsd-like environment with an outstanding interface.

    Let's face it. It will be 2-3 years before linux might become viable on an average user's desktop, not to mention persuading upper management. For now linux and bsd will probably remain on the developers' and advocates' desks.

    The Mac culture and commercial support is very well established. The linux, bsd, and mac communities have a lot to gain from cooperation and shared experiences.

    Now if they would only ship macs with 3+ button mice . . .
  • I recently downloaded the newest version of Cygwin (albeit on Win2k) and I was quite impressed with how far along it has come. Many many programs ported to it (virtually anything you could want). The only issues are really Windows issues that are more or less intractable.
    I have also had good luck in the past with the MKS toolkit. See here [mkssoftware.com].

  • unixutil (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SpaceLifeForm ( 228190 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @02:38AM (#3166940)
    No need for cygwin.
    Find unixutil [tu-muenchen.de] here.

  • If you take a look at GNUSoftware.com [gnusoftware.com] you'll find tons of Unix software for Windows.

    To answer your question, specifically, though here's the page for Unix shells [gnusoftware.com], where you have the choice of Bash, Tcsh, and ZSh

  • cygwin works everyday to remote X to my server. X -query .

    Or you could install fluxbox, It compiles on cygwin and it makes a purty interface.

  • Google for "zsh win32" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by costas ( 38724 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @05:40AM (#3167179) Homepage
    There is a native Zsh port for win32 that works very nicely (case insensitivity, path translation, etc) and doesn't require Cygwin. Zsh itself is more powerful than tcsh and although it's a sh-like shell (in the family of ksh and bash) it has lots of c/tcsh-like feature to help ease the transition.
  • Personally I can't stand the Cshell, if you're into Korn (the shell not the band!) you could do a lot worse than getting work to buy the MKS Toolkit [mks.com], it also comes with a load of other unixalike tools
  • Try the Services For Unix from Microsoft, (formerly NT-SUX) it's a rebundled MKS toolkit. I've tried the GNU tools and they stopped working right in W2K, and are now currently unavailable, while being re-prepared. If you want non-commercial, Cygwin is the way to go, but I think the MKS stuff is pretty comprehensive.
  • Go to www.kornshell.com and download the source and compile. The Korn shell will then function as a drop-in replacement for cmd.exe.

    There are also dozens of commercial Unix shells, including TCSH available in native NT binary form.
  • Does anyone here know how to use google [google.com]?
  • the NT/2000/XP environment provide command.com for backwards compatibility. If you are actually using the command-line, you will want to use cmd. cmd provides long filename support, tab completion, etc. just launch cmd from the run-line instead of command.

    qmail-maildir-daemontools howto [killerfocus.com]

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