in reply to cygwin or linux conundrum

I have used both Linux and Cygwin and on Win2K for developing Perl, and I find Cygwin to be a compromise at best. The terminal app on Win2K sucks, the integration between Cygwin and ActiveState Perl doesn't work transparently (#! doesn't work for me), modules won't compile with Cygwin and are not all available for ActiveState, etc. Linux is a dream to work with by comparison, and much better if you just want to hack some headache-free perl, in my opinion.

Also, Roaring Penguin PPPoE works great on Linux and was easier to set up than the stuff Earthlink gives out for Windows.

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Re: Re: cygwin or linux conundrum
by jlf (Scribe) on Jul 29, 2002 at 17:22 UTC
    The terminal app on Win2K sucks
    Not sure what you mean by this -- the Cygwin terminal apps are bash, tcsh, etc. same as Linux. Also, X is available under Cygwin (although not in rootless mode yet) so you can run your favorite xterm variant.

    the integration between Cygwin and ActiveState Perl doesn't work transparently (#! doesn't work for me)
    This is true out-of-the-box, although there is a workaround described here.

    modules won't compile with Cygwin and are not all available for ActiveState, etc.
    This has been my experience under W2K Pro as well :(

    Josh

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      The terminal app on Win2K sucks
      Not sure what you mean by this -- the Cygwin terminal apps are bash, tcsh, etc. same as Linux. Also, X is available under Cygwin (although not in rootless mode yet) so you can run your favorite xterm variant.
      There is a port of rxvt that runs on Windows without an X server. I _think_ it is part of the default install of cygwin. If it isn't, it can easily be installed with cygwin's setup.exe.

      rxvt is a console app, so you will see a command window flash open and close when starting rxvt from a shortcut. If you don't like the black window flashing, use editbin (part of VC++) or look at Jenda's page here for a perl script (exetype.pl) that will change the subsystem of rxvt from console to gui. I use this for rxvt, it works well.

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        Oh, nice! I didn't know about that rxvt port. That's much better!
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