8142972d87
effect is to move away from DocBook SGML and DJ Delorie's doctool and toward pure DocBook XSL. (There remains just one use of doctool, and we have plans for replacing it, too.) See ChangeLog for details.
185 lines
8.5 KiB
XML
185 lines
8.5 KiB
XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding='UTF-8'?>
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<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.5//EN"
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"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
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<sect1 id="using-effectively">
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<title>Using Cygwin effectively with Windows</title>
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<para>
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Cygwin is not a full operating system, and so must rely on Windows for
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accomplishing some tasks. For example, Cygwin provides a POSIX view
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of the Windows filesystem, but does not provide filesystem drivers of
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its own. Therefore part of using Cygwin effectively is learning to use
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Windows effectively.
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Many Windows utilities provide a good way to interact with Cygwin's
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predominately command-line environment. For example,
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<command>ipconfig.exe</command> provides information about network
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configuration, and <command>net.exe</command> views and configures
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network file and printer resources. Most of these tools
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support the <literal>/?</literal> switch to display usage information.
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</para>
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<para>
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Unfortunately, no standard set of tools included with all versions of
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Windows exists. Generally, the younger the Windows version, the more
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complete are the on-board tools. Microsoft also provides free downloads
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for Windows XP (the Windows Support Tools). Additionally, many independent
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sites such as
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<ulink url="http://download.com">download.com</ulink>,
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<ulink url="http://simtel.net">simtel.net</ulink>,
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and Microsoft's own
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<ulink url="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx">Sysinternals</ulink>
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provide quite useful command-line utilities, as far as they are not
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already provided by Cygwin. A few Windows tools, such as
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<command>find.exe</command>, <command>link.exe</command> and
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<command>sort.exe</command>, may conflict with the Cygwin versions
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make sure that you use the full path (<command>/usr/bin/find</command>)
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or that your Cygwin <literal>bin</literal> directory comes first in your
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<envar>PATH</envar>.
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</para>
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<sect2 id="using-pathnames-effectively"> <title>Pathnames</title>
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<para>
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Windows programs do not understand POSIX pathnames, so any arguments
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that reference the filesystem must be in Windows (or DOS) format or
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translated. Cygwin provides the <command>cygpath</command> utility for
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converting between Windows and POSIX paths. A complete description of its
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options and examples of its usage are in <xref linkend="cygpath"></xref>,
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including a shell script for starting Windows Explorer in any directory.
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The same format works for most Windows programs, for example
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<screen>
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<literal>notepad.exe "$(cygpath -aw "Desktop/Phone Numbers.txt")"</literal>
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</screen>
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A few programs require a Windows-style, semicolon-delimited path list,
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which <command>cygpath</command> can translate from a POSIX path with the
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<literal>-p</literal> option. For example, a Java compilation from
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<command>bash</command> might look like this:
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<screen>
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<literal>javac -cp "$(cygpath -pw "$CLASSPATH")" hello.java</literal>
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</screen>
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Since using quoting and subshells is somewhat awkward, it is often
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preferable to use <command>cygpath</command> in shell scripts.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="using-net"> <title>Cygwin and Windows Networking</title>
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<para>
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Many popular Cygwin packages, such as <systemitem>ncftp</systemitem>,
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<systemitem>lynx</systemitem>, and <systemitem>wget</systemitem>, require a
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network connection. Since Cygwin relies on Windows for connectivity,
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if one of these tools is not working as expected you may need to
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troubleshoot using Windows tools. The first test is to see if you
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can reach the URL's host with <command>ping.exe</command>, one of the
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few utilities included with every Windows version since Windows 95.
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If you chose to install the <systemitem>inetutils</systemitem> package,
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you may have both
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Windows and Cygwin versions of utilities such as <command>ftp</command>
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and <command>telnet</command>. If you are having problems using one
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of these programs, see if the alternate one works as expected.
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</para>
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<para>
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There are a variety of other programs available for specific situations.
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If your system does not have an always-on network connection, you
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may be interested in <command>rasdial.exe</command> for automating dialup
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connections.
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Users who frequently change their network
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configuration can script these changes with <command>netsh.exe</command>.
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For proxy users, the open source
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<ulink url="http://apserver.sourceforge.net">
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NTLM Authorization Proxy Server</ulink> or the no-charge
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<ulink url="http://www.hummingbird.com/products/nc/socks/index.html">
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Hummingbird SOCKS Proxy</ulink> may allow you to use Cygwin network
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programs in your environment.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="using-cygutils"><title>The cygutils package</title>
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<para>
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The optional <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> package contains
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miscellaneous tools that are small enough to not require their own package.
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It is not included in a default Cygwin install; select it from the Utils
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category in <command>setup.exe</command>. Several of the
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<systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> tools are useful for interacting with
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Windows.</para>
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<para>
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One of the hassles of Unix-Windows interoperability is the different line
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endings on text files. As mentioned in <xref linkend="using-textbinary"></xref>,
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Unix tools such as <command>tr</command> can convert between CRLF and LF
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endings, but <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> provides several dedicated programs:
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<command>conv</command>, <command>d2u</command>, <command>dos2unix</command>,
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<command>u2d</command>, and <command>unix2dos</command>. Use the
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<literal>--help</literal> switch for usage information.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="using-shortcuts"><title>Creating shortcuts with cygutils</title>
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<para>
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Another problem area is between Unix-style links, which link one file
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to another, and Microsoft .lnk files, which provide a shortcut to a
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file. They seem similar at first glance but, in reality, are fairly
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different. By default, Cygwin does not create symlinks as .lnk files,
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but there's an option to do that, see <xref linkend="using-cygwinenv"></xref>.
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These symlink .lnk files are compatible with Windows-created .lnk files,
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but they are still different. They do not include much of the information
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that is available in a standard Microsoft shortcut, such as the working
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directory, an icon, etc. The <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem>
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package includes a <command>mkshortcut</command> utility for creating
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standard native Microsoft .lnk files.
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</para>
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<para>
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But here's the problem. If Cygwin handled these native shortcuts like any
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other symlink, you could not archive Microsoft .lnk files into
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<command>tar</command> archives and keep all the information in them.
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After unpacking, these shortcuts would have lost all the extra information
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and would be no different than standard Cygwin symlinks. Therefore these two
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types of links are treated differently. Unfortunately, this means that the
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usual Unix way of creating and using symlinks does not work with native
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Windows shortcuts.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2 id="using-printing"><title>Printing with cygutils</title>
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<para>
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There are several options for printing from Cygwin, including the
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<command>lpr</command> found in <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem> (not to be confused with the
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native Windows <command>lpr.exe</command>). The easiest way to use <systemitem>cygutils</systemitem>'
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<command>lpr</command> is to specify a default device name in the
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<envar>PRINTER</envar> environment variable. You may also specify a device
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on the command line with the <literal>-d</literal> or <literal>-P</literal>
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options, which will override the environment variable setting.
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</para>
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<para>
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A device name
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may be a UNC path (<literal>\\server_name\printer_name</literal>), a reserved
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DOS device name (<literal>prn</literal>, <literal>lpt1</literal>), or a
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local port name that is mapped to a printer share. Note that forward slashes
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may be used in a UNC path (<literal>//server_name/printer_name</literal>),
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which is helpful when using <command>lpr</command> from a shell that uses
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the backslash as an escape character.
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</para>
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<para>
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<command>lpr</command> sends raw data to the printer; no formatting is done.
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Many, but not all, printers accept plain text as input. If your printer
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supports PostScript, packages such as
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<systemitem>a2ps</systemitem> and <systemitem>enscript</systemitem> can prepare
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text files for printing. The <systemitem>ghostscript</systemitem> package also
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provides some translation
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from PostScript to various native printer languages. Additionally, a native
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Windows application for printing PostScript, <command>gsprint</command>, is
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available from the <ulink url="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/">Ghostscript
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website</ulink>.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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