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GnuWin32 or Cygwin - from the point of view of programmers

For a programmer with Linux skills and a love for the command line, which is better to use on Windows - Cygwin or GnuWin32?

I tried to find a good comparison or a list of differences, but could not find anything remote. Also, I was wondering if this should be a superuser.com question, but decided against it because I ask you to use the tool for the programmer for sure.

I would like to know the common pitfalls and limitations of each solution. Windows interaction is an important issue as my main development is done in MSVC ...

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This is absolutely not a contest.

GnuWin32 does not include Bash

This is a critical part of the Cygwin distribution. Migrating from cmd.exe to Bash was a huge benefit to my performance. cmd.exe tricked compared to Bash.

Gnuwin32 old

Many programs go years without updating.

  • tar 2003
  • coreutils 2005
  • zlib 2005
  • make 2006
  • wget 2008

I would not use GnuWin32 if I had no other choice.

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