@section Using Cygwin @subsection Why can't my application locate cygncurses5.dll? or cygintl.dll? or cygreadline5.dll? or ...? If you upgraded recently, and suddenly vim (or some other Cygwin application) cannot find @code{cygncurses5.dll}, it means that you did not follow these instructions properly: @file{http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-announce/2001/msg00124.html}. To repair the damage, you must run Cygwin Setup again, and re-install the @samp{libncurses5} package. Note that Cygwin Setup won't show this option by default. In the ``Select packages to install'' dialogue, click on the @samp{Full/Part} button. This lists all packages, even those that are already installed. Scroll down to locate the @samp{libncurses5} package. Click on the ``cycle'' glyph until it says ``Reinstall''. Continue with the installation. Similarly, if something cannot find @code{cygintl.dll}, then run Cygwin Setup and re-install the @samp{libintl} and @samp{libintl1} packages. For a detailed explanation of the general problem, and how to extend it to other missing DLLs (like cygreadline5.dll) and identify their containing packages, see @file{http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2002-01/msg01619.html}. @subsection Why is Cygwin suddenly @emph{so} slow? If you recently upgraded the @samp{cygwin} package and suddenly @emph{every} command takes a @emph{very} long time, then you probably have the obsolete @code{//c} notation in your PATH. This now means the @emph{network share} @code{c}, which will slow things down tremendously if it does not exist. See then next FAQ entry. @subsection Why doesn't //c (for C:) work anymore? (Similarly for any drive letter, e.g. @code{//z} for @code{Z:}) This ``feature'' has long been deprecated, and no longer works at all in the latest release. As of release 1.3.3, @code{//c} now means the @emph{network share} @code{c}. For a detailed discussion of why this change was made, and how deal with it now, refer to @file{http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-09/msg00014.html}. @subsection How should I set my PATH? This is done for you in the file /etc/profile, which is sourced by bash when you start it from the Desktop or Start Menu shortcut, created by @code{setup.exe}. The line is @example PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:$PATH" @end example Effectively, this @strong{prepends} /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin to your Windows system path. If you choose to reset your PATH, say in $HOME/.bashrc, or by editing etc/profile directly, then you should follow this rule. You @strong{must} have @code{/usr/bin} in your PATH @strong{before} any Windows system directories. (And you must not omit the Windows system directories!) Otherwise you will likely encounter all sorts of problems running Cygwin applications. @subsection Bash says "command not found", but it's right there! If you compile a program, you might find that you can't run it: @example bash$ gcc -o hello hello.c bash$ hello bash: hello: command not found @end example Unlike Windows, bash does not look for programs in @samp{.} (the current directory) by default. You can add @samp{.} to your PATH (see above), but this is not recommended (at least on UNIX) for security reasons. Just tell bash where to find it, when you type it on the command line: @example bash$ gcc -o hello hello.c bash$ ./hello Hello World! @end example @subsection How do I convert between Windows and UNIX paths? Use the 'cygpath' utility. Type '@code{cygpath --help}' for information. For example (on my installation): @example bash$ cygpath --windows ~/.bashrc D:\starksb\.bashrc bash$ cygpath --unix C:/cygwin/bin/cygwin.bat /usr/bin/cygwin.bat bash$ cygpath --unix C:\\cygwin\\bin\\cygwin.bat /usr/bin/cygwin.bat @end example Note that bash interprets the backslash '\' as an escape character, so you must type it twice in the bash shell if you want it to be recognized as such. @subsection Why doesn't bash read my .bashrc file on startup? Your .bashrc is read from your home directory specified by the HOME environment variable. It uses /.bashrc if HOME is not set. So you need to set HOME correctly, or move your .bashrc to the top of the drive mounted as / in Cygwin. @subsection How can I get bash filename completion to be case insensitive? Add the following to your @code{~/.bashrc} file: @example shopt -s nocaseglob @end example and add the following to your @code{~/.inputrc} file: @example set completion-ignore-case on @end example @subsection Can I use paths/filenames containing spaces in them? Cygwin does support spaces in filenames and paths. That said, some utilities that use the library may not, since files don't typically contain spaces in Unix. If you stumble into problems with this, you will need to either fix the utilities or stop using spaces in filenames used by Cygwin tools. In particular, bash interprets space as a word separator. You would have to quote a filename containing spaces, or escape the space character. For example: @example bash-2.03$ cd '/cygdrive/c/Program Files' @end example or @example bash-2.03$ cd /cygdrive/c/Program\ Files @end example @subsection Why can't I cd into a shortcut to a directory? This is only valid up to but not including version 1.3.0: Cygwin does not follow MS Windows Explorer Shortcuts (*.lnk files). It sees a shortcut as a regular file and this you cannot "cd" into it. Some people have suggested replacing the current symbolic link scheme with shortcuts. The major problem with this is that .LNK files would then be used to symlink Cygwin paths that may or may not be valid under native Win32 non-Cygwin applications such as Explorer. Since version 1.3.0, Cygwin treats shortcuts as symlinks. @subsection I'm having basic problems with find. Why? Make sure you are using the find that came with Cygwin and that you aren't picking up the Win32 find command instead. You can verify that you are getting the right one by doing a "type find" in bash. If the path argument to find, including current directory (default), is itself a symbolic link, then find will not traverse it unless you specify the @samp{-follow} option. This behavior is different than most other UNIX implementations, but is not likely to change. @subsection Why doesn't @samp{su} work? The @samp{su} command has been in and out of Cygwin distributions, but it has not been ported to Cygwin and has never worked. It is currently installed as part of the sh-utils, but again, it does not work. You may be able to use @samp{login} instead, but you should read @file{http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-03/msg00337.html} first. For some technical background into why @samp{su} doesn't work, read @file{http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-06/msg00897.html} and related messages. @subsection Why doesn't man (or apropos) work? Even after installing the @samp{man} package, you get an error like this: @example bash-2.04$ man man Error executing formatting or display command. System command (cd /usr/man ; (echo -e ".pl 1100i"; cat /usr/man/man1/man.1; echo ".pl \n(nlu+10") | /usr/bin/tbl | /usr/bin/groff -Tascii -mandoc | less -is) exited with status 32512. No manual entry for man @end example You also need /bin/sh, which is found in the @samp{ash} package. You must install this too. In addition, before you can use @samp{man -k} or @samp{apropos}, you must create the whatis database. Just run the command @example /usr/sbin/makewhatis @end example (it may take a minute to complete). @subsection Why doesn't chmod work? @samp{ntsec} will allow UNIX permissions in Windows NT on NTFS file systems. This is on by default (a recent change). @samp{ntea} works on NTFS @emph{and} FAT but it creates a huge, @strong{undeletable} file on FAT filesystems. (The @samp{ntsec} and @samp{ntea} settings are values for the @samp{CYGWIN} environment variable. See the Cygwin User's Guide at @file{http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/cygwin-ug-net.html} for more information on this variable and its settings.) There is no solution at all for Windows 9x. If you have an application that requires a certain permission mode on a file, you may be able to work around this requirement by modifying the application's source code. For a hint, based on work done by Corinna Vinschen for OpenSSH, see this message from the cygwin mailing list: @file{http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2000-11/msg01176.html}. @subsection Why doesn't @samp{mkdir -p} work on a network share? Unfortunately, you cannot do something like this: @example bash$ mkdir -p //MACHINE/Share/path/to/new/dir mkdir: cannot create directory `//MACHINE': No such file or directory @end example This is because mkdir checks for the existence of each directory on the path, creating them as necessary. Since @samp{//MACHINE} is not a directory (you can't cd to it either), mkdir tries to create it, and fails. This might get fixed someday, but for now, you have to work around it: @example bash$ cd //MACHINE/Share bash$ mkdir -p path/to/new/dir @end example @subsection Why doesn't my shell script work? There are two basic problems you might run into. One is the fact that /bin/sh is really ash, and is missing some features you might expect in /bin/sh, particularly if you are used to /bin/sh actually being bash (Linux) or ksh (Tru64). For example: @itemize bullet @item No `~' expansion (use $HOME instead) @item No job control @item No getopts @item No let @item No functions exported @item Must use `.' instead of `source' (true of sh and ksh too, not just ash) @end itemize Or, it could be a permission problem, and Cygwin doesn't understand that your script is executable. Because @samp{chmod} may not work (see FAQ entry above), Cygwin must read the contents of files to determine if they are executable. If your script does not start with @example #! /bin/sh @end example (or any path to a script interpreter, it does not have to be /bin/sh) then Cygwin will not know it is an executable script. The Bourne shell idiom @example : # This is the 2nd line, assume processing by /bin/sh @end example also works. Note that you can use @samp{mount -x} to force Cygwin to treat all files under the mount point as executable. This can be used for individual files as well as directories. Then Cygwin will not bother to read files to determine whether they are executable. @subsection How do I print under Cygwin? There is no working lp or lpr system as you would find on UNIX. Jason Tishler has written a couple of messages that explain how to use a2ps (for nicely formatted text in PostScript) and ghostscript (to print PostScript files on non-PostScript Windows printers). Start at @file{http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-04/msg00657.html}. Note that the @samp{file} command is now available as part of Cygwin setup. Alternatively, on NT, you can use the Windows @samp{print} command. (It does not seem to be available on Win9x.) Type @example bash$ print /\? @end example for usage instructions (note the @samp{?} must be escaped from the shell). Finally, you can simply @samp{cat} the file to the printer's share name: @example bash$ cat myfile > //host/printer @end example You may need to press the formfeed button on your printer or append the formfeed character to your file. @subsection Why don't international (8-bit) characters work? Before you can type international characters (£هنِ) in bash, you must add the following lines to your @code{~/.inputrc} file: @example set meta-flag on set convert-meta off set output-meta on @end example These are options to the @code{readline} library, which you can read about in the @code{bash(1)} and @code{readline(3)} man pages. Other tools that do not use @code{readline} for display, such as less and ls, require additional settings, which could be put in your @code{~/.bashrc}: @example alias less='/bin/less -r' alias ls='/bin/ls -F --color=tty --show-control-chars' @end example @subsection Why don't cursor keys work under Win95/Win98? @strong{(Please note: This section has not yet been updated for the latest net release.)} Careful examination shows that they not just non-functional, but rather behave strangely, for example, with NumLock off, keys on numeric keyboard work, until you press usual cursor keys, when even numeric stop working, but they start working again after hitting alphanumeric key, etc. This reported to happen on localized versions of Win98 and Win95, and not specific to Cygwin (there're known cases of Alt+Enter (fullscreen/windowed toggle) not working and shifts sticking with other programs). The cause of this problem is Microsoft keyboard localizer which by default installed in 'autoexec.bat'. Corresponding line looks like: @example keyb ru,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keybrd3.sys @end example (That's for russian locale.) You should comment that line if you want your keys working properly. Of course, this will deprive you of your local alphabet keyboard support, so you should think about another localizer. exUSSR users are of course knowledgeable of Keyrus localizer, and it might work for other locales too, since it has keyboard layout editor. But it has russian messages and documentation ;-( Reference URL is http://www.hnet.ru/software/contrib/Utils/KeyRus/ (note the you may need to turn off Windows logo for Keyrus to operate properly). @subsection Is it OK to have multiple copies of the DLL? You should only have one copy of the Cygwin DLL on your system. If you have multiple versions, they will conflict and cause problems. If you get the error "shared region is corrupted" or "shared region version mismatch" it means you have multiple versions of cygwin1.dll running at the same time. This could happen, for example, if you update cygwin1.dll without exiting @emph{all} Cygwin apps (including inetd) beforehand. If you're trying to find multiple versions of the DLL that are causing this problem, reboot first, in case DLL's still loaded in memory are the cause. Then use the Windows System find utility to search your whole machine, not just components in your PATH (as 'type' would do) or cygwin-mounted filesystems (as Cygwin 'find' would do). @subsection Where can I find "more"? If you are looking for the "more" pager, you should use the "less" pager instead. @subsection Why isn't package XXXX available in Cygwin? (Or, why is your package so out of date?) Probably because there is nobody willing or able to maintain it. It takes time, and the priority for the Cygwin Team is the Cygwin package. The rest is a volunteer effort. Want to contribute? See below. @subsection How can I access other drives? You have some flexibility here. Cygwin has a builtin "cygdrive prefix" for drives that are not mounted. You can access any drive, say Z:, as '/cygdrive/z/'. In some applications (notably bash), you can use the familiar windows :/path/, using posix forward-slashes ('/') instead of Windows backward-slashes ('\'). (But see the warning below!) This maps in the obvious way to the Windows path, but will be converted internally to use the Cygwin path, following mounts (default or explicit). For example: @example bash$ cd C:/Windows bash$ pwd /cygdrive/c/Windows @end example and @example bash$ cd C:/cygwin bash$ pwd / @end example for a default setup. You could also use backward-slashes in the Windows path, but these would have to be escaped from the shell. @strong{Warning:} There is some ambiguity in going from a Windows path to the posix path, because different posix paths, through different mount points, could map to the same Windows directory. This matters because different mount points may be binmode or textmode, so the behavior of Cygwin apps will vary depending on the posix path used to get there. You can avoid the ambiguity of Windows paths, and avoid typing "/cygdrive", by explicitly mounting drives to posix paths. For example: @example bash$ mkdir /c bash$ mount c:/ /c bash$ ls /c @end example Then @samp{/cygdrive/c/Windows} becomes @samp{/c/Windows} which is a little less typing. Note that you only need to mount drives once. The mapping is kept in the registry so mounts stay valid pretty much indefinitely. You can only get rid of them with umount, or the registry editor. The '-b' option to mount mounts the mountpoint in binary mode ("binmode") where text and binary files are treated equivalently. This should only be necessary for badly ported Unix programs where binary flags are missing from open calls. It is also the setting for /, /usr/bin and /usr/lib in a default Cygwin installation. The default for new mounts is text mode ("textmode"), which is also the mode for all "cygdrive" mounts. You can change the default @samp{cygdrive} prefix and whether it is binmode or textmode using the @code{mount} command. For example, @example bash$ mount -b --change-cygdrive-prefix cygdrive @end example will change all @code{/cygdrive/...} mounts to binmode. @subsection How can I copy and paste into Cygwin console windows? First, consider using rxvt instead of the standard console window. In rxvt, selecting with the left-mouse also copies, and middle-mouse pastes. It couldn't be easier! Under Windows NT, open the properties dialog of the console window. The options contain a toggle button, named "Quick edit mode". It must be ON. Save the properties. Under Windows 9x, open the properties dialog of the console window. Select the Misc tab. Uncheck Fast Pasting. Check QuickEdit. You can also bind the insert key to paste from the clipboard by adding the following line to your .inputrc file: @example "\e[2~": paste-from-clipboard @end example @subsection What does "mount failed: Device or resource busy" mean? @strong{(Please note: This section has not yet been updated for the latest net release.)} This usually means that you are trying to mount to a location already in use by mount. For example, if c: is mounted as '/' and you try to mount d: there as well, you will get this error message. First "umount" the old location, then "mount" the new one and you should have better luck. If you are trying to umount '/' and are getting this message, you may need to run @code{regedit.exe} and change the "native" key for the '/' mount in one of the mount points kept under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Red Hat, Inc./CYGWIN.DLL setup/ where is the latest registry version associated with the Cygwin library. @subsection How can I share files between Unix and Windows? During development, we have both Unix boxes running Samba and NT/Windows 95/98 machines. We often build with cross-compilers under Unix and copy binaries and source to the Windows system or just toy with them directly off the Samba-mounted partition. On dual-boot NT/Windows 9x machines, we usually use the FAT filesystem so we can also access the files under Windows 9x. @subsection Are mixed-case filenames possible with Cygwin? Several Unix programs expect to be able to use to filenames spelled the same way, but with different case. A prime example of this is perl's configuration script, which wants @code{Makefile} and @code{makefile}. WIN32 can't tell the difference between files with just different case, so the configuration fails. In releases prior to beta 16, mount had a special mixed case option which renamed files in such a way as to allow mixed case filenames. We chose to remove the support when we rewrote the path handling code for beta 16. The standard Windows apps -- explorer.exe, cmd.exe/command.com, etc. -- do not distinguish filenames that differed only in case, resulting in some (very) undesirable behavior. Sergey Okhapkin had maintained a mixed-case patch ('coolview') until about B20.1, but this has not been updated to recent versions of Cygwin. @subsection What about DOS special filenames? Files cannot be named com1, lpt1, or aux (to name a few); either as the root filename or as the extension part. If you do, you'll have trouble. Unix programs don't avoid these names which can make things interesting. E.g., the perl distribution has a file called @code{aux.sh}. The perl configuration tries to make sure that @code{aux.sh} is there, but an operation on a file with the magic letters 'aux' in it will hang. @subsection When it hangs, how do I get it back? If something goes wrong and the tools hang on you for some reason (easy to do if you try and read a file called aux.sh), first try hitting ^C to return to bash or the cmd prompt. If you start up another shell, and applications don't run, it's a good bet that the hung process is still running somewhere. Use the Task Manager, pview, or a similar utility to kill the process. And, if all else fails, there's always the reset button/power switch. This should never be necessary under Windows NT. @subsection Why the weird directory structure? Why do /lib and /usr/lib (and /bin, /usr/bin) point to the same thing? Why use mounts instead of symbolic links? Can I use a disk root (e.g., C:\) as Cygwin root? Why is this discouraged? After a new installation in the default location, your mount points will look something like this: @example bash$ mount C:\cygwin\bin on /usr/bin type system (binmode) C:\cygwin\lib on /usr/lib type system (binmode) C:\cygwin on / type system (binmode) @end example (Exactly what you see depends on what options you gave to @code{setup.exe}.) Note that /bin and /usr/bin point to the same location, as do /lib and /usr/lib. This is intentional, and you should not undo these mounts unless you @emph{really} know what you are doing. Various applications and packages may expect to be installed in /lib or /usr/lib (similarly /bin or /usr/bin). Rather than distinguish between them and try to keep track of them (possibly requiring the occasional duplication or symbolic link), it was decided to maintain only one actual directory, with equivalent ways to access it. Symbolic links had been considered for this purpose, but were dismissed because they do not always work on Samba drives. Also, mounts are faster to process because no disk access is required to resolve them. Note that non-cygwin applications will not observe Cygwin mounts (or symlinks for that matter). For example, if you use WinZip to unpack the tar distribution of a Cygwin package, it may not get installed to the correct Cygwin path. @emph{So don't do this!} It is strongly recommended not to make the Cygwin root directory the same as your drive's root directory, unless you know what you are doing and are prepared to deal with the consequences. It is generally easier to maintain the Cygwin hierarchy if it is isolated from, say, C:\. For one thing, you avoid possible collisions with other (non-cygwin) applications that may create (for example) \bin and \lib directories. (Maybe you have nothing like that installed now, but who knows about things you might add in the future?) @subsection How do anti-virus programs like Cygwin? Users have reported that NAI (formerly McAfee) VirusScan for NT (and others?) is incompatible with Cygwin. This is because it tries to scan the newly loaded shared memory in cygwin1.dll, which can cause fork() to fail, wreaking havoc on many of the tools. (It is not confirmed that this is still a problem, however.) There have been several reports of NAI VirusScan causing the system to hang when unpacking tar.gz archives. This is surely a bug in VirusScan, and should be reported to NAI. The only workaround is to disable VirusScan when accessing these files. This can be an issue during setup, and is discussed in that FAQ entry. Some users report a significant performance hit using Cygwin when their anti-virus software is enabled. Rather than disable the anti-virus software completely, it may be possible to specify directories whose contents are exempt from scanning. In a default installation, this would be @samp{@code{C:\cygwin\bin}}. Obviously, this could be exploited by a hostile non-Cygwin program, so do this at your own risk. @subsection Is there a Cygwin port of GNU Emacs? Yes! It uses the X11 (@file{http://cygwin.com/xfree/}) Windows interface. From a remote login shell, this ``emacs -nw'' works fine. There is also a non-X11 version which just provides the text-only terminal interface. Use Cygwin Setup to install either one (or both). @subsection What about NT Emacs? If you want GNU Emacs with a native Microsoft Windows interface, but without X, then you must use the native Windows port, commonly known as ``NT Emacs''. You get NT Emacs from any GNU mirror. It is not available from Cygwin Setup. NT Emacs uses the Windows command shell by default. Since it is not a Cygwin application, it has no knowledge of Cygwin mounts. With those points in mind, you need to add the following code to your ~/.emacs (or ~/_emacs) file in order to use Cygwin bash. This is particularly useful for the JDEE package (@file{http://jdee.sunsite.dk/}). The following settings are for Emacs 21.1: @example ;; This assumes that Cygwin is installed in C:\cygwin (the ;; default) and that C:\cygwin\bin is not already in your ;; Windows Path (it generally should not be). ;; (setq exec-path (cons "C:/cygwin/bin" exec-path)) (setenv "PATH" (concat "C:\\cygwin\\bin;" (getenv "PATH"))) ;; ;; NT-emacs assumes a Windows command shell, which you change ;; here. ;; (setq process-coding-system-alist '(("bash" . undecided-unix))) (setq shell-file-name "bash") (setenv "SHELL" shell-file-name) (setq explicit-shell-file-name shell-file-name) ;; ;; This removes unsightly ^M characters that would otherwise ;; appear in the output of java applications. ;; (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions 'comint-strip-ctrl-m) @end example If you want NT Emacs to understand Cygwin paths, get cygwin-mount.el from @file{http://www.emacswiki.org/elisp/index.html}. Note that all of this ``just works'' if you use the Cygwin port of Emacs from Cygwin Setup. @subsection What about XEmacs? For a concise description of the current situation with XEmacs, see this message from the Cygwin mailing list: @file{http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2002-11/msg00609.html}. @subsection Is there a better alternative to the standard console window? Yes! Use rxvt instead. It's an optional package in Cygwin Setup. You can use it with or without X11. You can resize it easily by dragging an edge or corner. Copy and paste is easy with the left and middle mouse buttons, respectively. It will honor settings in your ~/.Xdefaults file, even without X. Don't invoke as simply ``rxvt'' because that will run /bin/sh (really ash) which is not a good interactive shell. For details see @code{/usr/doc/Cygwin/rxvt-.README}. @subsection info error "dir: No such file or directory" Cygwin packages install their info documentation in the /usr/info directory. But you need to create a @code{dir} file there before the standalone info program (probably @code{/usr/bin/info}) can be used to read those info files. This is how you do it: @example bash$ cd /usr/info bash$ for f in *.info ; do install-info $f dir ; done @end example This may generate warnings: @example install-info: warning: no info dir entry in `gzip.info' install-info: warning: no info dir entry in `time.info' @end example The @code{install-info} command cannot parse these files, so you will have to add their entries to @code{/usr/info/dir} by hand. Even if the dir file already exists, you may have to update it when you install new Cygwin packages. Some packages update the dir file for you, but many don't. @subsection Why do I get a message saying Out of Queue slots? "Out of queue slots!" generally occurs when you're trying to remove many files that you do not have permission to remove (either because you don't have permission, they are opened exclusively, etc). What happens is Cygwin queues up these files with the supposition that it will be possible to delete these files in the future. Assuming that the permission of an affected file does change later on, the file will be deleted as requested. However, if too many requests come in to delete inaccessible files, the queue overflows and you get the message you're asking about. Usually you can remedy this with a quick chmod, close of a file, or other such thing. (Thanks to Larry Hall for this explanation). @subsection Why don't symlinks work on samba-mounted filesystems? Symlinks are marked with "system" file attribute. Samba does not enable this attribute by default. To enable it, consult your Samba documentation and then add these lines to your samba configuration file: @smallexample map system = yes create mask = 0775 @end smallexample Note that the 0775 can be anything as long as the 0010 bit is set. @subsection Why does df report sizes incorrectly. There is a bug in the Win32 API function GetFreeDiskSpace that makes it return incorrect values for disks larger than 2 GB in size. Perhaps that may be your problem? @subsection Why doesn't Cygwin tcl/tk understand Cygwin paths? The versions of Tcl/Tk distributed with Cygwin (e.g. cygtclsh80.exe, cygwish80.exe) are not actually "Cygwin versions" of those tools. They are built with the @samp{-mno-cygwin} option to @code{gcc}, which means they do not understand Cygwin mounts or symbolic links. See the entry "How do I convert between Windows and UNIX paths?" elsewhere in this FAQ.