Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows

Sorry to say this to Windoze, but without Cygwin XP would be severely gimped. Cygwin gives the full power of UNIX through your terminal window.



This is a good thing because the native C/C++ compilers allow programability from the get-go. I am looking at .NET to begin the testing of its integrity and security weaknesses. Keeping our Window proto-type in a virtual prison we are able to better safe guard our Windows specific applications and .NET web development.

We do this in sync with our open source equivalent, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on the Macs main operating system, since Macs are essentially BSD UNIX they already come with full UNIX functionality. The unfortunate fact of XP gimpness "mandates" the immediate install of Cygwin so XP would not suck so much.