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As the title suggests, I have installed cygwin on my Windows machine in order to try and learn about UNIX shells and kernels, and how to interact with them. I know that it is pseudo UNIX/LINUX as the actual host is Windows, but is it the best way to learn about UNIX/Linux systems?
My aspiration (which is going to be affected by the answers) is to make sure that I master the UNIX/LINUX file system commands and scripting.
hagubear
Posted 2014-02-01T18:49:58.387
Reputation: 323
1Whether or not this is the "best" way is debatable and subject to opinion. If you don't want to dual-boot (and virtualization is no option), then there's not much of an alternative really. – slhck – 2014-02-01T19:01:52.230
1Seems like a virtual machine would be easier to configure. After using Cygwin and comparing it to an actual Linux host, there are significant differences. Using Cygwin unlikely will teach you very much about the filesystem of a Linux/Unix operating system. – Ramhound – 2014-02-01T19:59:38.937
cygwin would not necessarily have sudo (Not every distro uses it), nor apt-get (which is a debianism). I do believe you install packages from cygwin setup instead. – Journeyman Geek – 2014-02-02T11:59:44.260
What problem are you really trying to solve? Like Journeyman Geek said,
apt-getis found only on Debian-like Linux distributions, it's nothing "standard". Are you following some tutorial? Most of these are tailored to specific distributions, so you have to install those in a virtual machine—not Cygwin. – slhck – 2014-02-02T12:02:29.373