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"Best" way to run on Windows XP

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Chris Lott

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Jul 24, 2005, 12:03:42 PM7/24/05
to
Is the "best" way to run emacs on Windows XP to use the Native XP build
or the Cygwin? By "best" I mean: stable, able to run elisp code from
emacs.sources, and able to effectively use external tools like grep,
diff, etc... ?

c

Chris L

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Jul 24, 2005, 12:20:07 PM7/24/05
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I almost forgot the most important thing I'll be using emacs for: doing
LaTeX work with AucTeX and refTeX... I can go with either a cygwin
build for TeX or something like miktex

David Kastrup

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Jul 24, 2005, 12:47:43 PM7/24/05
to
"Chris Lott" <Chris...@gmail.com> writes:

I think native build plus MSYS <URL:http://www.mingw.org/msys.shtml>
is a pretty good combination, but I have not actively tried it myself,
not being a Windows user.

--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

jasonr

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Jul 24, 2005, 12:51:40 PM7/24/05
to
"Chris Lott" <Chris...@gmail.com> writes:

If you are only using Cygwin tools, then Cygwin might be better in
some respects, but if that is the case, why use Windows at all?

For any other case, I'd have to say the native build for the following
reasons.

Cygwin Emacs does not appear to be regularly maintained. Maybe the
original port was good enough that it doesn't need anyone maintaining
it, but I doubt it.

A lot of effort has been put into making native Windows Emacs work
with Cygwin tools. The cygwin developers don't seem to show any
interest in making their tools work with native Windows tools. Even
for such programs as make where running external tools is the
program's primary purpose, their solution is to ask everyone to
rewrite their makefiles with awkward macros around filename arguments
that might be processed by non-Cygwin tools.

Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 24, 2005, 2:56:50 PM7/24/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: "Chris Lott" <Chris...@gmail.com>
> Date: 24 Jul 2005 09:03:42 -0700

>
> Is the "best" way to run emacs on Windows XP to use the Native XP build
> or the Cygwin?

I think the native build is better, as it relies less on non-standard
tools and libraries that could be incompatible.

> By "best" I mean: stable, able to run elisp code from
> emacs.sources, and able to effectively use external tools like grep,
> diff, etc... ?

Everything should work. If you bump into a missing prfogram, like
Grep, download it from the GnuWin32 project.


Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 24, 2005, 2:58:29 PM7/24/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: "Chris L" <Chris...@gmail.com>
> Date: 24 Jul 2005 09:20:07 -0700

>
> I almost forgot the most important thing I'll be using emacs for: doing
> LaTeX work with AucTeX and refTeX... I can go with either a cygwin
> build for TeX or something like miktex

There's a native Windows port of TeX and LaTeX called fpTeX. You can
find it on CTAN. It comes with an installer and is a snap to install
and use. No need for a Cygwin port here, either.


Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 24, 2005, 3:01:17 PM7/24/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>
> Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 18:47:43 +0200

>
> I think native build plus MSYS <URL:http://www.mingw.org/msys.shtml>
> is a pretty good combination, but I have not actively tried it myself,
> not being a Windows user.

AFAIK, MSYS is not a full suite of ports, its purpose is to provide an
environment for running configure scripts. Also, it has some
Cygwin-style maladies which could be a pain on Windows (for example,
Diff uses binary I/O, and thus compares files different when they only
differ in their end-of-line format, Newline vs CRLF).

Drew Adams

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Jul 24, 2005, 3:08:46 PM7/24/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
I can't speak for what's best, as I haven't tried the Cygwin build of Emacs.
I use the native Windows Emacs build, but I use it with Cygwin tools (e.g.
grep). That combination works fine for me.

Peter Dyballa

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Jul 24, 2005, 3:46:56 PM7/24/05
to Eli Zaretskii, help-gn...@gnu.org

Am 24.07.2005 um 20:58 schrieb Eli Zaretskii:

> It comes with an installer and is a snap to install and use.

Fabrice Popineau has stopped maintaining and developing fpTeX:
https://xemtex.groups.foundry.supelec.fr/xemtex-web-gb-2-5.html ...
(and promises to work for XEmacs -- therefore he calls his new project
XEmTeX!)

MiKTeX (http://www.miktex.org/) and its augmented end-user package
proTeXt (http://www.tug.org/protext/) might be a better recommendation
...

--
Greetings

Pete

"A mathematician is a machine that turns coffee into theorems."

Lennart Borgman

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Jul 24, 2005, 5:14:52 PM7/24/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>>From: David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>
>>Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 18:47:43 +0200
>>

>>I think native build plus MSYS <URL:http://www.mingw.org/msys.shtml>
>>is a pretty good combination, but I have not actively tried it myself,
>>not being a Windows user.
>>
>>
>

>AFAIK, MSYS is not a full suite of ports, its purpose is to provide an
>environment for running configure scripts. Also, it has some
>Cygwin-style maladies which could be a pain on Windows (for example,
>Diff uses binary I/O, and thus compares files different when they only
>differ in their end-of-line format, Newline vs CRLF).
>
>

I have been playing with MSYS a bit and I strongly agree with Eli that
there unfortunately are some problems currently using MSYS. The
compression built into Emacs (jka) is another example where the handling
of end-of-line in MSYS makes it impossible to use. (I hope this one is
cured in very soon.)

There also currently seems to be a bug in MSYS sh parameter handling
which causes trouble.

However if these bugs where corrected and MSYS changed the end-of-line
handling (for example for diff) I think it would be very good to use
with Emacs. Until then it is much easier to use the GnuWin32 tools
(which however unfortunately misses a sh).

And actually, the situation is more complicated than that. For some
things you want to do you need a sh. Currently MSYS is the easiest way
to get that. In those situations you have to switch to the MSYS
environments for those things and then switch back to the GnuWin32
tools. Not very convinient indeed!

Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 24, 2005, 11:23:04 PM7/24/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> Cc: help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: Peter Dyballa <Peter_...@Web.DE>
> Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 21:46:56 +0200

>
> Fabrice Popineau has stopped maintaining and developing fpTeX:

I know, but I don't think it matters much: TeX sees very little
development anyway. It barely changed during the last several years.


David Kastrup

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Jul 25, 2005, 3:25:14 AM7/25/05
to
Eli Zaretskii <el...@gnu.org> writes:

Newsflash: of the 500MB+ of a full TeXlive installation, TeX itself
makes up for less than 1%.

Ehud Karni

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Jul 25, 2005, 10:05:43 AM7/25/05
to Chris Lott, Jason Rumney, Eli Zaretskii, Drew Adams, help-gn...@gnu.org
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 17:51:40 +0100, Jason Rumney wrote:

>
> Chris Lott writes:
>
> > Is the "best" way to run emacs on Windows XP to use the Native XP build
> > or the Cygwin? By "best" I mean: stable, able to run elisp code from
> > emacs.sources, and able to effectively use external tools like grep,
> > diff, etc... ?
>
> If you are only using Cygwin tools, then Cygwin might be better in
> some respects, but if that is the case, why use Windows at all?
>
> For any other case, I'd have to say the native build for the following
> reasons.
>
> Cygwin Emacs does not appear to be regularly maintained. Maybe the
> original port was good enough that it doesn't need anyone maintaining
> it, but I doubt it.

Cygwin Emacs is VERY well maintained by Joe Buehler. He did a superb
job, including the unexec part. His changes are included in the main
trunk, so compiling Emacs from CVS in Cygwin works OOTB.

I was working with NTEmacs and switched to the Cygwin Emacs because
of two reasons:
1. You have the full UNIX toolset with real POSIX support
(e.g. same paths, env vars with lower case letters).
2. Some things that were included in UNIX Emacs (jpeg IIRC) were not
supported by the NTEmacs but worked with Cygwin Emacs on X.

If you use the Cygwin toolset, I highly recommend using Cygwin Emacs.

Ehud.


--
Ehud Karni Tel: +972-3-7966-561 /"\
Mivtach - Simon Fax: +972-3-7966-667 \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign
Insurance agencies (USA) voice mail and X Against HTML Mail
http://www.mvs.co.il FAX: 1-815-5509341 / \
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Jason Dufair

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Jul 25, 2005, 12:50:53 PM7/25/05
to
"Chris Lott" <Chris...@gmail.com> writes:

I've spent a lot of time in both environments, and IMO, if you want
something that "just works" (i.e. feels like Emacs on *nix), go for the
Cygwin port. It's well maintained, and with Cygwin/X in multiwindow
mode, you'll feel like home.
--
Jason Dufair - ja...@dufair.org
http://www.dufair.org/
"I would never do crack...
I would never do a drug named after a part of my own ass, okay?"
-- Denis Leary.

Klaus Berndl

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Jul 25, 2005, 1:49:30 PM7/25/05
to

Another one: I can recommend MikTeX!

Klaus

--
Klaus Berndl mailto: klaus....@sdm.de
sd&m AG http://www.sdm.de
software design & management
Carl-Wery-Str. 42, 81739 Muenchen, Germany
Tel +49 89 63812-392, Fax -220

Klaus Berndl

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Jul 25, 2005, 1:54:49 PM7/25/05
to
On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Ehud Karni wrote:

> On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 17:51:40 +0100, Jason Rumney wrote:
> >
> > Chris Lott writes:
> >
> > > Is the "best" way to run emacs on Windows XP to use the Native XP build
> > > or the Cygwin? By "best" I mean: stable, able to run elisp code from
> > > emacs.sources, and able to effectively use external tools like grep,
> > > diff, etc... ?
> >
> > If you are only using Cygwin tools, then Cygwin might be better in
> > some respects, but if that is the case, why use Windows at all?
> >
> > For any other case, I'd have to say the native build for the following
> > reasons.
> >
> > Cygwin Emacs does not appear to be regularly maintained. Maybe the
> > original port was good enough that it doesn't need anyone maintaining
> > it, but I doubt it.
>
> Cygwin Emacs is VERY well maintained by Joe Buehler. He did a superb
> job, including the unexec part. His changes are included in the main
> trunk, so compiling Emacs from CVS in Cygwin works OOTB.
>
> I was working with NTEmacs and switched to the Cygwin Emacs because
> of two reasons:
> 1. You have the full UNIX toolset with real POSIX support
> (e.g. same paths, env vars with lower case letters).
> 2. Some things that were included in UNIX Emacs (jpeg IIRC) were not
> supported by the NTEmacs but worked with Cygwin Emacs on X.
>
> If you use the Cygwin toolset, I highly recommend using Cygwin Emacs.

Sounds interesting. Two question from a guy who just thinks about trying out
the cygwin-port:

1. Did you encounter performance-issues with the cygwin port of Emacs? I ask,
because the cygwin-port of XEmacs is often horrible slow concerning
file-operations compared with the native Windows-port.

2. Is a X-Server needed for running the cygwin-port of Emacs. I'm just running
the rxvt-terminal of cygwin and the native Windows-port of Emacs and i'm
quite happy with it. Do i need the X-server for the cygwin-port?

Thanks a lot in advance,
Klaus

>
> Ehud.

Klaus Berndl

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Jul 25, 2005, 1:50:27 PM7/25/05
to
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

same for the diff shipped with cygwin!

Klaus

Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 25, 2005, 2:41:34 PM7/25/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: Klaus Berndl <klaus....@sdm.de>
> Date: 25 Jul 2005 19:54:49 +0200

>
> 1. Did you encounter performance-issues with the cygwin port of Emacs?

Yes. But you might not notice this on modern fast machines.

> 2. Is a X-Server needed for running the cygwin-port of Emacs.

Yes.


Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 25, 2005, 2:35:23 PM7/25/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:05:43 +0300
> From: "Ehud Karni" <eh...@unix.mvs.co.il>
> Cc: help-gn...@gnu.org

>
> Cygwin Emacs is VERY well maintained by Joe Buehler.

Still, his last ChangeLog entry in the Emacs CVS dates back to April
2004. If the Cygwin port is still in good shape, it's probably by
sheer luck (or by work of others).

> I was working with NTEmacs and switched to the Cygwin Emacs because
> of two reasons:
> 1. You have the full UNIX toolset with real POSIX support
> (e.g. same paths, env vars with lower case letters).

You can have the same with GnuWin32.

> 2. Some things that were included in UNIX Emacs (jpeg IIRC) were not
> supported by the NTEmacs but worked with Cygwin Emacs on X.

This is supported in the CVS NTEmacs code for a very long time (before
the Cygwin support became part of the CVS).

So I think now Cygwin and NTEmacs basically work equally well, and the
choice depends on whether one wants a native Windows Emacs or a
Posix-compliant Emacs.


Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 25, 2005, 3:00:50 PM7/25/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>
> Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 09:25:14 +0200

>
> Newsflash: of the 500MB+ of a full TeXlive installation, TeX itself
> makes up for less than 1%.

Just couldn't resist, could you?

Please grep ChangeLog files in TeX/Web2C directories for my name, and
I think you will find that I know very well about what's there since
about 8 years ago. And _all_ that stuff, including the other 99%,
changes very little, from the user point of view.


J. David Boyd

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Jul 25, 2005, 3:04:03 PM7/25/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
Eli Zaretskii <el...@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Klaus Berndl <klaus....@sdm.de>
>> Date: 25 Jul 2005 19:54:49 +0200
>>

>> 2. Is a X-Server needed for running the cygwin-port of Emacs.
>

> Yes.

No, it is not necessary at all. You can run emacs just fine in a console
session, and I used to do it all the time, before I learned how to start up
the Xserver in cygwin.

Dave in Largo, FL

David Kastrup

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Jul 25, 2005, 3:31:19 PM7/25/05
to
Eli Zaretskii <el...@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>
>> Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 09:25:14 +0200
>>
>> Newsflash: of the 500MB+ of a full TeXlive installation, TeX itself
>> makes up for less than 1%.
>
> Just couldn't resist, could you?
>
> Please grep ChangeLog files in TeX/Web2C directories for my name,
> and I think you will find that I know very well about what's there
> since about 8 years ago. And _all_ that stuff, including the other
> 99%,

All that stuff in TeX/Web2C _is_ maybe 1% of a full TeXlive
installation, and certainly does not include the other 99%.

> changes very little, from the user point of view.

You mean, PDFTeX does not exist, almost _everything_ PDF-related does
not exist, listings.sty does not exist, all the various presentation
classes do not exist, ConTeXt does not exist, LaTeX never got around
to supporting any encoding except latin-1, useful scalable fonts do
not exist, source specials don't exist, KOMA-Script and memoir don't
exist and so forth and so on?

Peter Lee

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Jul 25, 2005, 6:20:04 PM7/25/05
to
>>>> Chris Lott writes:

Chris> Is the "best" way to run emacs on Windows XP to use the Native XP build
Chris> or the Cygwin?

I've always used the native port using mingw tools for compiling.
With the cvs version you can also get image support for the native
build. That plus the gnuwin32 tools and eshell keeps me happy. I
have cygwin installed as well, but really only ever use it for the
x-server when I want to run emacs remotely.

Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 26, 2005, 12:55:50 AM7/26/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: da...@adboyd.com (J. David Boyd)
> Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 15:04:03 -0400

>
> >> 2. Is a X-Server needed for running the cygwin-port of Emacs.
> >
> > Yes.
>
> No, it is not necessary at all. You can run emacs just fine in a console
> session

I couldn't imagine that the OP would be satisfied with "emacs -nw",
but if I'm wrong, I apologize for this misunderstanding.


Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 26, 2005, 1:07:43 AM7/26/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>
> Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 21:31:19 +0200

>
> All that stuff in TeX/Web2C _is_ maybe 1% of a full TeXlive
> installation, and certainly does not include the other 99%.

I guess you think the main body of TeXLive is the fonts and the macro
packages. But if some of these are missing, they can be downloaded
from CTAN and installed without any need for porting to Windows.

> > changes very little, from the user point of view.
>
> You mean, PDFTeX does not exist, almost _everything_ PDF-related does
> not exist, listings.sty does not exist, all the various presentation
> classes do not exist, ConTeXt does not exist, LaTeX never got around
> to supporting any encoding except latin-1, useful scalable fonts do
> not exist, source specials don't exist, KOMA-Script and memoir don't
> exist and so forth and so on?

Sigh. No, I mean that these are already part of the latest fpTeX,
even though its last version was released 18 months ago.


David Kastrup

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Jul 26, 2005, 4:49:09 AM7/26/05
to
Eli Zaretskii <el...@gnu.org> writes:

Quite a bit of that has considerably changed since then. The utf8
encoding of LaTeX is new, KOMA-Script has new versions, memoir has
been fixed, ConTeXt largely extended, the Latin Modern fonts have
changed significantly, PDFTeX has margin kerning supported by the
microtype package, it has gained font extension, the beamer
presentation class is quite improved, as is listings.

Eli Zaretskii

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Jul 26, 2005, 2:15:57 PM7/26/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> From: David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>
> Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:49:09 +0200

>
> > Sigh. No, I mean that these are already part of the latest fpTeX,
> > even though its last version was released 18 months ago.
>
> Quite a bit of that has considerably changed since then. The utf8
> encoding of LaTeX is new, KOMA-Script has new versions, memoir has
> been fixed, ConTeXt largely extended, the Latin Modern fonts have
> changed significantly, PDFTeX has margin kerning supported by the
> microtype package, it has gained font extension, the beamer
> presentation class is quite improved, as is listings.

Like I said: insignificant for users.

And if someone wants the latest version of some macro package or font,
they can download and install it anytime. Only the code parts need a
new port, files do not.


Klaus Berndl

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Jul 28, 2005, 9:57:45 AM7/28/05
to

There is no need to apologize, Eli, you were right - i would relly not be
satisfied with emacs -nw - sorry for my not clear posting: I meant
"...necessary for Emacs and it's gui features"...

Klaus

treebeard

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Aug 16, 2005, 6:07:40 PM8/16/05
to
Chris Lott wrote:
> Is the "best" way to run emacs on Windows XP to use the Native XP build
> or the Cygwin? By "best" I mean: stable, able to run elisp code from
> emacs.sources, and able to effectively use external tools like grep,
> diff, etc... ?
>
> c
>
I find using the Windows-native Emacs or XEmacs in conjunction with the
cygwin tools to be the most versatile. Either way, you have access to
all of the binaries on the path (incl the cygwin binaries). One thing I
really like about the native vs. cygwin versions is that drag-and-drop
of directories or files from Windows Explorer is supported.

Lennart Borgman

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Aug 16, 2005, 6:26:36 PM8/16/05
to tbur...@excite.com, help-gn...@gnu.org
treebeard wrote:

I have found the Gnuwin32 version of gnu tools to be very good together
with Emacs (but I am not the most experienced). For example they can
handle both unix and Windows style line endings without difficulties. In
contrast this is currently not the case with MSYS which makes it quite a
bit harder to use MSYS.

However I miss "sh" which unfortunateluy not is not part of the Gnuwin32
tools. (It would be nice if someone ported it in a useful way like the
other Gnuwin32 tools.)


Brett Kelly

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Aug 17, 2005, 9:55:21 PM8/17/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
The Labrat toolkit has many, many good unix utils ported to win32:

http://labrattech.com/project/labrattoolkit/

(Sorry if this has already been mentioned, I caught this thread half-way
through)

Brett

Sometime around Wed, Aug 17, 2005 at 12:26:36AM +0200, Lennart Borgman said:

> I have found the Gnuwin32 version of gnu tools to be very good together
> with Emacs (but I am not the most experienced). For example they can
> handle both unix and Windows style line endings without difficulties. In
> contrast this is currently not the case with MSYS which makes it quite a
> bit harder to use MSYS.
>
> However I miss "sh" which unfortunateluy not is not part of the Gnuwin32
> tools. (It would be nice if someone ported it in a useful way like the
> other Gnuwin32 tools.)
>
>

> _______________________________________________
> Help-gnu-emacs mailing list
> Help-gn...@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs
>

--
Brett Kelly
ink...@inkedmn.com
http://inkedmn.com:8000
GPG Public Key: http://inkedmn.com:8000/stuff/inkedmn.asc


David Combs

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Aug 24, 2005, 9:02:50 PM8/24/05
to
In article <mailman.4126.112433111...@gnu.org>,

Brett Kelly <ink...@inkedmn.com> wrote:
>The Labrat toolkit has many, many good unix utils ported to win32:
>
>http://labrattech.com/project/labrattoolkit/
>
>(Sorry if this has already been mentioned, I caught this thread half-way
>through)
>
>Brett
>

Could you please say a few things about this toolkit,
especially how it compares with the gnu-toolkit ("cygwin"?).

(labrattoolkit is free to download -- it seems?)

Pros and cons?

Thanks!

David


Eli Zaretskii

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Oct 15, 2005, 4:16:30 AM10/15/05
to help-gn...@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 18:55:21 -0700
> From: Brett Kelly <ink...@inkedmn.com>

>
> The Labrat toolkit has many, many good unix utils ported to win32:
>
> http://labrattech.com/project/labrattoolkit/

That page seems to imply that the Unix utils part is simply the
UnxUtils package (http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/), which is quite
old (and doesn't include a shell). Isn't that true?

Anyway, thanks for a useful pointer.


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