153 lines
6.6 KiB
XML
153 lines
6.6 KiB
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding='UTF-8'?>
|
|
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.5//EN"
|
|
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
|
|
|
|
<qandadiv id="faq.about">
|
|
<title>About Cygwin</title>
|
|
|
|
<!-- faq-what.xml -->
|
|
<qandaentry id="faq.what.what">
|
|
<question><para>What is it?</para></question>
|
|
<answer>
|
|
|
|
<para>Cygwin is a distribution of popular GNU and other Open Source tools
|
|
running on Microsoft Windows. The core part is the Cygwin library which
|
|
provides the POSIX system calls and environment these programs expect.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>The Cygwin distribution contains thousands of packages from the Open
|
|
Source world including most GNU tools, many BSD tools, an X server and a full
|
|
set of X applications. If you're a developer you will find tools, headers
|
|
and libraries allowing to write Windows console or GUI applications that make
|
|
use of significant parts of the POSIX API. Cygwin allows easy porting of many
|
|
Unix programs without the need for extensive changes to the source code. This
|
|
includes configuring and building most of the available GNU or BSD software,
|
|
including the packages included with the Cygwin distribution themselves.
|
|
They can be used from one of the provided Unix shells like bash, tcsh or zsh.
|
|
</para>
|
|
</answer></qandaentry>
|
|
|
|
<qandaentry id="faq.what.supported">
|
|
<question><para>What versions of Windows are supported?</para></question>
|
|
<answer>
|
|
|
|
<para>Cygwin can be expected to run on all modern, released versions of Windows,
|
|
from Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, Windows Server 2008 and all
|
|
later versions of Windows, except Windows S mode due to its limitations.
|
|
The 32 bit version of Cygwin also runs in the WOW64 32 bit environment on
|
|
released 64 bit versions of Windows including ARM PCs,
|
|
the 64 bit version of course only on 64 bit AMD/Intel compatible PCs.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>Keep in mind that Cygwin can only do as much as the underlying OS
|
|
supports. Because of this, Cygwin will behave differently, and
|
|
exhibit different limitations, on the various versions of Windows.
|
|
</para>
|
|
</answer></qandaentry>
|
|
|
|
<qandaentry id="faq.what.where">
|
|
<question><para>Where can I get it?</para></question>
|
|
<answer>
|
|
|
|
<para>The home page for the Cygwin project is
|
|
<ulink url="https://cygwin.com/"/>.
|
|
There you should find everything you need for Cygwin, including links
|
|
for download and setup, a current list of mirror sites, a User's
|
|
Guide, an API Reference, mailing lists and archives.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>You can find documentation for the individual GNU tools typically
|
|
as man pages or info pages as part of the Cygwin net distribution.
|
|
Additionally you can get the latest docs at
|
|
<ulink url="http://www.gnu.org/manual"/>.
|
|
</para>
|
|
</answer></qandaentry>
|
|
|
|
<qandaentry id="faq.what.free">
|
|
<question><para>Is it free software?</para></question>
|
|
<answer>
|
|
|
|
<para>Yes. Parts are GNU software (gcc, gas, ld, etc...), parts are covered
|
|
by the standard X11 license, some of it is public domain, some of
|
|
it was written by Red Hat (or the former Cygnus Solutions) and placed under
|
|
the GPL. None of it is shareware. You don't have to pay anyone to use it
|
|
but you should be sure to read the copyright section of the FAQ for more
|
|
information on how the GNU General Public License may affect your use of
|
|
these tools.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>Note that when we say "free" we mean freedom, not price. The goal of
|
|
such freedom is that the people who use a given piece of software
|
|
should be able to change it to fit their needs, learn from it, share
|
|
it with their friends, etc. The GPL or LGPL licenses allows you those
|
|
freedoms, so it is free software.
|
|
</para>
|
|
</answer></qandaentry>
|
|
|
|
<qandaentry id="faq.what.version">
|
|
<question><para>What version of Cygwin <emphasis>is</emphasis> this, anyway?</para></question>
|
|
<answer>
|
|
|
|
<para>To find the version of the Cygwin DLL installed, you can use
|
|
<filename>uname</filename> <literal>-r</literal> as you would for a Unix kernel.
|
|
As the Cygwin DLL takes the place of a Unix kernel,
|
|
you can also use the Unix compatible command:
|
|
<filename>head</filename> <filename>/proc/version</filename>,
|
|
or the Cygwin specific command:
|
|
<filename>cygcheck</filename> <literal>-V</literal>.
|
|
Refer to each command's
|
|
<literal>--help</literal> output and the
|
|
<ulink url='https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/'>Cygwin User's Guide</ulink>
|
|
for more information.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>If you are looking for the version number for the whole Cygwin
|
|
release, there is none.
|
|
Each package in the Cygwin release has its own version, and the
|
|
<literal>cygwin</literal> package containing the Cygwin DLL and Cygwin
|
|
system specific utilities is just another (but very important!) package.
|
|
The packages in Cygwin are continually improving, thanks to
|
|
the efforts of volunteers who maintain the Cygwin ports.
|
|
Each package has its own version numbers and its own release process.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>So, how do you get the most up-to-date version of Cygwin? Easy. Just
|
|
download the Cygwin Setup program by following the
|
|
<ulink url='https://cygwin.com/install.html'>installation instructions</ulink>.
|
|
The Setup program will handle the task of updating the packages on your system
|
|
to the latest version.
|
|
For more information about using Cygwin's Setup program, see
|
|
<ulink url='https://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/setup-net.html'>Setting Up Cygwin</ulink>
|
|
in the Cygwin User's Guide.
|
|
</para></answer></qandaentry>
|
|
|
|
<qandaentry id="faq.what.who">
|
|
<question><para>Who's behind the project?</para></question>
|
|
<answer>
|
|
|
|
<para><emphasis role='bold'>(Please note that if you have cygwin-specific
|
|
questions, all of these people will appreciate it if you use the cygwin
|
|
mailing lists rather than sending personal email.)</emphasis>
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
Corinna Vinschen is the current project lead,
|
|
responsible for the Cygwin library and a lot more.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
Yaakov Selkowitz is the guy behind the current build and packaging system
|
|
and maintained by far the most packages in the Cygwin distribution.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
Jon Turney is maintainer of the Cygwin X server and related packages.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
The packages are maintained by a large group of
|
|
<ulink url='https://cygwin.com/cygwin-pkg-maint'>volunteers</ulink>.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>
|
|
Please note that all of us volunteering on Cygwin try to be as responsive as
|
|
possible and deal with patches and questions as we get them, but
|
|
realistically we don't have time to answer all of the email that is sent to
|
|
the main mailing list.
|
|
Making releases of the tools and packages is an activity in our spare time,
|
|
helping people out is not our primary focus, so some email will have to go
|
|
unanswered.
|
|
</para>
|
|
<para>Many thanks to everyone using the tools for their many contributions in
|
|
the form of advice, bug reports, and code fixes. Keep them coming!
|
|
</para></answer></qandaentry>
|
|
</qandadiv>
|