Cygwin is a collection of tools which provide a Linux look and feel environment for Windows. Cygwin is a DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API layer providing substantial Linux API functionality.
Several of the language compilers as well as a tool chain link are supported and made available via Cygwin.
There are several ways to download and install Cygwin. I initially downloaded the distribution from a site and installed from that site. I have found that many distributions are incomplete or contain errors.
It was not until I installed from a web download that I received a complete package and was able to make the Cygwin function properly.
You have to install the Cygwin path to the bin directory into the path variable for your system. That is the only way you can gain access to Cygwin’s features.
Mr. Arch Brooks, Software Engineer, Brooks Computing Systems authored this article.