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What are the advantages or disadvantages of using GNU/Linux utilities on Windows 7 via Cygwin as opposed to making use of Windows 7 Ultimate SUA (Subsystem for UNIX-based applications) support (formerly known as Interix). Apparently the SUA implementation on Windows 7 is fully POSIX compliant.
What I would like to know is:
How good is the POSIX compliant environment and Unix utilities provided with Windows 7 Ultimate?
Can I run Unix/Linux executables (such as ELF files) on Windows 7 Ultimate without recompiling them for Windows 7?
I've read that some systems such as Debian have been ported to such Windows 7 Ultimate SUA. Where can I download such distributions.
On my laptop I currently run Windows inside VirtualBox, often via Vagrant configuration files, given that I don't need to use my laptop as a server, and given that some applications only run on windows, and booting Linux in such manner seems to be more convenient than installing Linux on a separate partition and dual-booting these days. However, if I could even run an entire Linux distribution, properly, with native support from the Windows kernel rather than via user-space support provided by Cygwin, than that would be preferable (no need to even wait for Linux to boot inside of VirtualBox).
Thanks.
1It isn't a "basic" question, but it lacks some research... You can see the utilities you get by installing Cygwin by seeing their webpage. But Cygwin isn't a system in the definition of an OS, it is more of a development environment. Other than this, what system have you? You mention not having Windows 7 so I'm assuming you have a Linux system or otherwise this would befall into a XY problem. – Doktoro Reichard – 2013-11-23T00:57:27.653
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The SO question http://stackoverflow.com/q/4746043/318716 may be useful.
– Joseph Quinsey – 2013-11-23T01:43:49.030Yes, it is useful. In particular if I understand it properly the original poster managed to run a shell without the need to recompile it but said there were some memory management problems on his system. – John Sonderson – 2013-11-23T01:55:16.687