How do I install cygwin components from the command line?
Is there a tool in the Cygwin package similar to apt-get on Debian or yum on redhat that allows me to install components from the command line?
Solution 1:
Cygwin's setup accepts command-line arguments to install packages from the command-line.
e.g. setup-x86.exe -q -P packagename1,packagename2 to install packages without any GUI interaction ('unattended setup mode').
(Note that you need to use setup-x86.exe or setup-x86_64.exe as appropriate.)
See http://cygwin.com/packages/ for the package list.
Solution 2:
For a more convenient installer, you may want to use
apt-cyg as your package manager. Its syntax similar to
apt-get, which is a plus. For this, follow the above
steps and then use Cygwin Bash for the following steps
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg/master/apt-cyg
chmod +x apt-cyg
mv apt-cyg /usr/local/bin
Now that apt-cyg is installed. Here are few examples of
installing some packages
apt-cyg install nano
apt-cyg install git
apt-cyg install ca-certificates
Solution 3:
There is no tool specifically in the 'setup.exe' installer that offers the functionality of apt-get. There is, however, a command-line package installer for Cygwin that can be downloaded separately, but it is not entirely stable and relies on workarounds.
apt-cyg: http://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg
Check out the issues tab for the project to see the known problems.
Solution 4:
There exist some scripts, which can be used as simple package managers for Cygwin. But it’s important to know, that they always will be quite limited, because of...ehm...Windows.
Installing or removing packages is fine, each package manager for Cygwin can do that. But updating is a pain since Windows doesn’t allow you to overwrite an executable, which is currently running. So you can’t update e.g. Cygwin DLL or any package which contains the currently running executable from the Cygwin itself. There is also this note on the Cygwin Installation page:
"The basic reason for not having a more full-featured package manager is that such a program would need full access to all of Cygwin’s POSIX functionality. That is, however, difficult to provide in a Cygwin-free environment, such as exists on first installation. Additionally, Windows does not easily allow overwriting of in-use executables so installing a new version of the Cygwin DLL while a package manager is using the DLL is problematic."
Cygwin’s setup uses Windows registry to overwrite executables which are in use
and this method requires a reboot of Windows. Therefore, it’s better to close
all Cygwin processes before updating packages, so you don’t have to reboot
your computer to actually apply the changes. Installation of a new package
should be completely without any hassles. I don’t think any of package managers
except of Cygwin’s setup.exe implements any method to overwrite files in use,
so it would simply fail if it cannot overwrite them.
Some package managers for Cygwin:
apt-cyg
Update: the repository was disabled recently due to copyright issues (DMCA takedown). It looks like the owner of the repository issued the DMCA takedown on his own repository and created a new project called Sage (see bellow).
The best one for me. Simply because it’s one of the most recent. It doesn’t use Cygwin’s setup.exe, it rather re-implements, what setup.exe does. It works correctly for both platforms - x86 as well as x86_64. There are a lot of forks with more or less additional features. For example, the kou1okada fork is one of the improved versions, which is really great.
apt-cyg is just a shell script, there is no installation. Just download it (or clone the repository), make it executable and copy it somewhere to the PATH:
chmod +x apt-cyg # set executable bit
mv apt-cyg /usr/local/bin # move somewhere to PATH
# ...and use it:
apt-cyg install vim
There is also bunch of forks with different features.
sage
Another package manager implemented as a shell script. I didn't try it but it actually looks good.
It can search for packages in a repository, list packages in a category, check dependencies, list package files, and more. It has features which other package managers don't have.
cyg-apt
Fork of abandoned original cyg-apt with improvements and bugfixes. It has quite a lot of features and it's implemented in Python. Installation is made using make.
Chocolatey’s cyg-get
If you used Chocolatey to install Cygwin, you can install the package cyg-get, which is actually a simple wrapper around Cygwin’s setup.exe written in PowerShell.
Cygwin’s setup.exe
It also has a command line mode. Moreover, it allows you to upgrade all installed packages at once (as apt-get upgrade does on Debian based Linux).
Example use:
setup-x86_64.exe -q --packages=bash,vim
You can create an alias for easier use, for example:
alias cyg-get="/cygdrive/d/path/to/cygwin/setup-x86_64.exe -q -P"
Then you can, for example, install Vim package with:
cyg-get vim