What Is Cygwin?

Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:

• A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality.
• A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.

The Cygwin DLL currently works with all recent, commercially released x86 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows, with the exception of Windows CE.

Note that the official support for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me will be discontinued with the next major version (1.7.0) of Cygwin.

What Isn't Cygwin?

• Cygwin is not a way to run native linux apps on Windows. You have to rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows.
• Cygwin is not a way to magically make native Windows apps aware of UNIX® functionality, like signals, ptys, etc. Again, you need to build your apps from source if you want to take advantage of Cygwin functionality.

Cygwin能做什么？

• Windows的Dos Scripts功能非常薄弱，命令行工具也非常少；如果您对Linux比较熟悉，那么Cygwin可以帮助您在Windows下面使用强大的Bash，以及使用数量繁多的Linux命令，通过Scripts，可以更加高效的完成系统管理工作 [站长维护的Windows服务器上都安装有Cygwin，所有的系统维护，数据备份，SCP自动同步，都是在Cygwin下面处理的。]
• 如果您刚进入Linux的世界，使用Cygwin可以让你在Windows下面练习Linux的Bash，以及常用工具。而不需要安装Linux，也不用担心Windows被破坏。

怎么安装和使用Cygwin?

• Cygwin所有的软件包都在互联网上，您需要先下载一个安装程序，根据安装程序的提示，从互联网上下载您需要的软件包。
• 请点击导航栏的“安装”，查看整个安装过程。

Cygwin.cn是?

• Cygwin在国外使用很广泛，Cygwin.cn旨在推广Cygwin在中国的普及和发展；