Alternatives
Several open-source and proprietary alternatives are available for simultaneous access to both Windows and UNIX environments on the same hardware.
Toolsets like Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX (SFU), UWIN, MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers and Hamilton C shell also aim to provide a Unix-like user and development environment. They implement at least a shell and a set of the most popular utilities. Most include the familiar GNU and/or Unix development tools, including make, yacc, lex and a cc command which acts a wrapper around a supported C compiler. SFU also includes the GCC compiler.
MinGW is a native software port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) to Microsoft Windows, along with a set of freely distributable import libraries and header files for the Windows API. MinGW allows developers to create native Microsoft Windows applications. In addition, a component of MinGW known as MSYS (Minimal SYStem), which was derived from Cygwin version 1.3.3, provides a minimal Unix-like shell environment including bash and a selection of POSIX tools sufficient to enable autoconf scripts to run.
In addition, there are numerous virtualization solutions that provide x86 platform virtualization to run Windows and Unix-like operating systems simultaneously on the same hardware, but without the integration of the environments that Cygwin provides. Some, like VirtualBox and VMware Player run on Windows and Linux hosts and can run many other operating systems. Cooperative Linux (in short coLinux) runs a full, but modified Linux kernel like a driver under Windows, effectively making Windows and Linux two coroutines, using cooperative multitasking to switch between them.
Winelib, a part of the Wine project, is the inverse of Cygwin - it is a free and open source compatibility layer for Unix-like operating systems on the x86 or x86-64 architecture that can allow programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Unlike Cygwin which requires "You rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows", the full Wine product supports executing unmodified Windows binaries.
Read more about this topic: Cygwin
Famous quotes containing the word alternatives:
“The literal alternatives to [abortion] are suicide, motherhood, and, some would add, madness. Consequently, there is some confusion, discomfort, and cynicism greeting efforts to “find” or “emphasize” or “identify” alternatives to abortion.”
—Connie J. Downey (b. 1934)
“The last alternatives they face
Of face, without the life to save,
Being from all salvation weaned
A stag charged both at heel and head:
Who would come back is turned a fiend
Instructed by the fiery dead.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)