Windows – Should I use Cygwin Terminal and Cygwin Bash Shell or cygwin.bat

cygwin;windows

I want to use Cygwin as a replacement to cmd.exe on Windows. When I search my Windows PC for Cygwin, I see two Cygwin programs that I can use…

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Cygwin Terminal runs C:\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe

Cygwin Bash Shell runs C:\Apps\cygwin\cygwin.bat (this bat file subsequently calls C:\Apps\cygwin\bin\bash.exe)

Both of them open up what seem like command windows that I can use. But which one should I use? Is there any difference between them?

Best Answer

The "Cygwin Terminal" one runs Mintty, a terminal emulator installed by default by Cygwin.

The other one just executes bash.exe from within another shell (a Windows Command Prompt, another Mintty instance, RXVT).

They both run the same Cygwin setup. It's simply a matter of preference as Mintty is more customizable than the default Windows Command Prompt.

Example:

Example Mintty

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Windows – Starting Cygwin in arbitrary directory

I was able to hack something together for you. Put this in a batch file in your path (I called mine cygwin.bat, and called it by entering cygwin.bat):

@echo off
set pth=%CD:~2,99%
set pth=%pth:\=/%
set drv=%CD:~0,1%
set "fullpath=/cygdrive/%drv%%pth%"
C:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe --login -i -c "cd ""%fullpath%""; exec /bin/bash"

Can git-bash and cygwin shell do the same things

The difference is that Cygwin knows how to process so-called "Win32" pathnames. Loosely speaking, it knows that "\" is a pathname separator and not a shell escape character like it is in Bash. The error you showed is Bash interpreting "\" as an escape character. (Edit: you might try replacing one \ with two, thus escaping the backslash, so that Bash passes the command through to reg.exe correctly.)

Having said that, while Cygwin groks Windows pathnames, it doesn't like to do so. The documentation warns you off from using them. Of course, a little back-sliding now and then doesn't hurt. But while you can run Windows programs in Cygwin, hygiene suggests you should run Windows programs in the CMD.EXE processor and UNIX ones in Cygwin for your long-term sanity.

Best Answer

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Windows – Starting Cygwin in arbitrary directory

Can git-bash and cygwin shell do the same things

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