Cygwin install tips using cyg-apt

This is my OLD blog. I've copied this post over to my NEW blog at:

http://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2007/11/cygwin-install-tips/

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I recently got a new computer at work and needed to reinstall Cygwin. Here is my install procedure using the very nice cyg-apt script. It's like Debian's apt-get for Cygwin! Note, this install process assumes that I have all my init files backed up and can copy them over to my new machine.

1. Run the Cygwin setup program and install the default packages plus wget and python.
2. Set the Windows user environment variable HOME to c:\home\sofeng. Note, I tried it with forward slashes, but then it doesn't work in my Windows batch file.
3. Start the Cygwin bash shell
4. Change the cygdrive prefix:
   mount -s --change-cygdrive-prefix /
   If you don't have admin privileges:
   mount -u --change-cygdrive-prefix /
5. Copy over my init files and startup scripts:
   
   • ~/bin/startxwin.bat
     This is the Windows batch file that I use to start my Cygwin/X environment. It does the following:
     • Adds ~/bin to my PATH
     • cds to my HOME directory
     • Starts the ratpoison window manager with a urxvt terminal running screen
   • ~/.Xdefaults
     Sets the colors, font, and scrolling behavior for urxvt.
   • ~/.bashrc
     
     • Sets the PS1 (prompt), EDITOR, http_proxy, and other environment variables.
     • Sets a lot of aliases
     • Sets bash filename completion to be case insensitive
   • ~/.cyg-apt
     
   • ~/.emacs
     
   • ~/.emacs.d
     
   • ~/.inputrc
     
   • ~/.screenrc
     
   • /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf
   • /var/cron/tabs/sofeng
6. Install cyg-apt

   $ wget http://www.lilypond.org/~janneke/software/cyg-apt
   $ chmod a+xr cyg-apt
   $ mv cyg-apt ~/bin

7. Install good stuff (note, if you don't already have ~/.cyg-apt, you will need to run cyg-apt setup first):
   

   $ cyg-apt install rsync	Best backup utility
   $ cyg-apt install screen	Terminal multiplexer
   $ cyg-apt install xorg-x11-base	X Windows
   $ cyg-apt install rxvt-unicode-X	Better Xterm
   $ cyg-apt install diffutils	diff
   $ cyg-apt install gcc-core	GCC C complier
   $ cyg-apt install make	GNU make
   $ cyg-apt install xorg-x11-devel	X header and library files for compiling ratpoison or other programs
   $ cyg-apt install readline	used for ratpoison
   $ cyg-apt install cron	so I can schedule my backups and updatedb
   $ cyg-apt install ssmtp	Sendmail replacement so cron can email me
   $ cyg-apt install emacs	Terminal version of emacs for quick editing jobs from the shell

Other notes:

• I thought that I needed to add c:/cygwin/bin to my Windows path in order to use grep in Emacs Windows. However, I later found out that this step is not needed. It is generally bad practice to add c:/cygwin/bin to the Windows path. Instead, I added the required code in my .emacs file. See http://cygwin.com/faq/faq-nochunks.html#faq.using.ntemacs for more information.
• I used to keep my http proxy server information in ~/.wgetrc, but now I store it in the http_proxy environment variable. (Note, it is lowercase and not uppercase. I don't know why this is.)