Contents

• My Installation and configuration
• Running a native win32 application from cygwin/bash
• Some generic aliases I use
• Keyboard configuration: .inputrc
• MsWindows 9x, Cygwin, Mutt and Vim

What follows are files and some configuration aspects from my cygwin installation. Everything here have been tested with Cygwin 1.3.12-4 on a MsWindows Millenium equiped PC, and since then with Cygwin 1.5.10 on MsWindows XP Pro SP1.

The Cygwin Project is a port of the popular tools GNU development tools for MicrosoftWindows operating systems.

The cygwin *NIX emulation layer completly changes the way the paths are managed. All the cygwin hierarchy appears under the «/» : new root directory as on unices. Unfortunately, MsWindows native tools (i.e. not using the cygwin layer) can't understand paths expressed in the UNIX way.
In order to convert *NIX (i.e. cygwin)-paths into plain MsWindows-paths, we can use: 'cygpath -w'.

But, Cygwin also permits many nice things like symbolic links -- try 'man ln'. Unfortunately, cygpath seems (at this time) unable to follow these links and to return the exact MsWindows-path to the linked-files.

Moreover, I had many headaches with the management of spaces on MsWindows 9x series when using command line invocation of native win32 tools.

So here is cyg-wrapper.sh, a shell script that fixes all these problems. It permits to launch native win32 applications from command-line (or even from Mutt) with any kind of pathnames passed as parameters.

cyg-wrapper.sh 12th  June  2006	cyg-wrapper v2.18. Requires cygUtils to run and more precisally realpath. Cygutils-Package is also distributed as an official part of the cygwin net-release. To get help on the way to use cyg-wrapper, try a 'cyg-wrapper.sh --help | less' or look at the aliases in my .profile.
cyg-wrapper-1.1.sh 5th  December  2002	cyg-wrapper v1.1. Does not require cygUtils to run. It is slower and provide less options than the version 2.x.

It enables us to do things like:

      gvim /etc/profile -c /PS1 -c "echo 'correctly opened'"
  # or even:
      cd ~/tmp ; ln -s ~/bin/cyg-wrapper.sh 
      gvim -d http://hermitte.free.fr/cygwin/cyg-wrapper.sh cyg-wrapper.sh

      explorer -e
      explorer "$vim"
      explorer http://hermitte.free.fr/

Last note, cygstart (from cygUtils) and cyg-wrapper are similar but behave slightly differently. cyg-wrapper permit to pass arguments and more files on the command line to any program ; cyg-wrapper can also follow symbolic links, handle binary options, and convert or unset environment variables.

Related excerpt from my .profile

#=================================================
# Definitions (excerpt from my .profile)
#=================================================
## Program Files
    cprograms="C:\Program Files"
    # $ucprograms used to build $PATH ; transformation needed with older
    # versions of Cygwin
    ucprograms=`cygpath -u "$cprograms"`
    # Note, in order to change_directory (/...) to $cprograms, as the space 
    # within the pathname causes troubles, use double-quote around the
    # environment variable:
    #     > cd "$cprograms"

# ===================================================================
## VIM
    vim="${cprograms}\Edition\vim"
    # $uvim used to build $PATH
    uvim=`cygpath -u "$vim"`
    # PATH="${PATH}:${uvim}/vim63"

    # The following syntax concerns cyg-wrapper 2.0.+
    alias vi= 'cyg-wrapper.sh "C:/Progra~1/Edition/vim/vim63/gvim.exe"
	    --binary-opt=-c,--cmd,-T,-t,--servername,--remote-send,--remote-expr'

    ## Little trick for LaTeX-Suite:
    # If one of the parameters is a (La)TeX file, then we declare the
    # servername to be «LATEX».
    gvim() {
	opt=''
	if [ `expr "$*" : '.*tex\>'` -gt 0 ] ; then
	    opt='--servername LATEX '
	fi
	cyg-wrapper.sh "F:/Progra~1/Edition/vim/vim63/gvim.exe"
	    --binary-opt=-c,--cmd,-T,-t,--servername,--remote-send,--remote-expr
	    --cyg-verbose --fork=2 $opt "$@"
    }

## Some other windows programs
    alias explorer='cyg-wrapper.sh "explorer" --slashed-opt'
    alias mplayer='cyg-wrapper.sh "c:/Progra~1/Window~1/mplayer2.exe"'

# ===================================================================
## Aliases and Environnement for external viewers needed when using LaTeX

# Yap
    alias xdvi='cyg-wrapper.sh yap'

# Ghostview
    PATH="${PATH}:${ucprograms}/Edition/Ghostgum/gsview"
    alias gv='cyg-wrapper.sh gsview32 --slashed-opt''
    GSPATH="$ucprograms/Edition/gs/gs7.04"
    PATH="${PATH}:${GSPATH}/bin:${GSPATH}/lib"

# Acrobat Reader
    PATH="${PATH}:${ucprograms}/Edition/Adobe/Acrobat 5.0/Reader"
    alias xpdf='cyg-wrapper.sh "AcroRd32.exe"'
    alias acroread='cyg-wrapper.sh "AcroRd32.exe"'
    

Related Links

Soren Andersen's scripts for running gvim.

#=================================================
### Aliases (excerpt from my .profile)
#=================================================
### List directory contents
    alias ls='ls -F --color'
    alias l='ls -altr '
    #With tcsh: alias ll='\ls -altr $* | less '
    ll() { \ls -aFltr --color $* | less -R 
    }
    LESS="-B -c -h4 -i -M -q -x4"

# Display the $PATH in a human acceptable way
    alias PATH="echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n'"

### Directories pushing ; Very handy!!!
# Shortcuts + better presentation of the directories pushed.
## Display the directories pushed
    d() {
        \dirs \ 
        | awk  '{gsub(/ ~/, "!~"); gsub(/ \//, "!/") ; n=split($0,arr,"!") ; 
            for (i=1;i<=n;++i) print (i-1)" -> "arr[i] }'
    }
    alias dirs=d
# Note: We can not directly write «dirs() { \dirs | ... }» as it would
# end in an infinite loop. Hence the declaration of «d(){}» and dirs as
# an alias for d.

## Push a directory
    p() {
	if [ -z "$*" ] ; then
	    # If no parameter, we do not want to push the current directory
	    \pushd > /dev/null
	else
	    # The quotes in «"$*» permit to write «p $vim»
	    \pushd "$*" > /dev/null
	fi
	# List the directories pushed
	d
    }
## Move to a pushed directory
    alias p1="p +1"
    alias p2="p +2"
    alias p3="p +3"

    alias helpcommand=winhlp32

If you find cygwin limited regarding accentuated characters, delete key not properly working, etc., did you configured your keyboard ? Have a look at Anne Baretta's «Consistent Backspace & Delete Configuration» web page. For more help, check 'man bash' (and search for readline/inputrc) and 'man readline'.

Otherwise, here is as a result my .inputrc. I haven't tested RXVT rebindings, but console ones work very well. I've redefined the <Del> key to erase the character before the cursor, <Home>, <End> to their usually expected behavior, <C-U> to erase the whole line ; accentuated characters can be hit ; functions keys have been binded to become some handy (to me) shortcuts.

Just a little note about how to run Mutt on MsWindows 9x systems.

If you try to install the Mutt release found on Cygwin distributions, you will quickly experience many troubles related to file-locks. Indeed, this release expects the OS to support different things that are only supported by the MsWindows-NT series (NT, 2000 & XP).

The other solution available is to use a win32 native compilation of Mutt. Check for instance «Mutt on Windows». Unfortunately, the classical win32 release of VIM (that can be found on sourceforge and VIM mirrors) is not usable at all with the win32 version of Mutt.
Indeed, win32-Vim is always forking, and running 'gvim -f' won't change anything. This is not suitable for Mutt. The only way Vim does not fork is when it is launched from Cygwin.

So, I've finally ended up to recompile Mutt, on Cygwin. Now, I don't have any locking issues, and Mutt is correctly waiting for Vim termination. For those interrested, I got some patches available from «Mutt on Windows» (patch-1.2.5.uen.edit_threads.2.txt, and patch-1.4.uen.smtp.1.txt), and recompiled Mutt with:

    gzip -cd mutt-1.4.tar.gz | tar xf -
    cd mutt-1.4
    patch -p1 < ../patch-1.2.5.uen.edit_threads.2.txt
    patch -p1 < ../patch-1.4.uen.smtp.1.txt
    make configure
    ./configure --enable-pop --enable-imap --with-ssl --enable-imap-edit-threads \ 
                --enable-external-dotlock --with-regex --enable-pgp --enable-smtp
    make
    make install

Little excerpt from my .muttrc

Note: I use Hamster on my local host as an IMAP and SMTP server.

    # Set the path to where you want all your mail files kept
    set folder = "$HOME/Mail"

    account-hook . 'unset imap_user ; unset imap_pass ; unset tunnel'
    account-hook imap://localhost/ 'set imap_user="Luc" ; set imap_pass="the_password"'
    account-hook imap://imap.free.fr/ 'set imap_user="hermitte" ; set imap_pass="the_password"'
    # IMAP settings for Hamster ; note: Hamster-Fr V2.1.1.7 seems to require
    # the user account to have a password...

    set spoolfile = imap://localhost/

    ################
    # If patch SMTP
    set sendmail  = 'builtin'
    set smtp_serv = "localhost"
    set smtp_user = "Luc"   # log on to $smtp_serv as $smtp_user
    # set smtp_pass = ""            # use ESMPT and "AUTH LOGIN"
    # Warning: password is sent as plain text (base64 encoded. no encyption)
    set envelope_from = yes
    # envelope_from is required in order to use an address recognized by the
    # real smtp server (ie, not Hamster).
    ################
    ...
    set editor = "cyg-wrapper.sh gvim '+/^$'"      # editor to use when composing messages
    # Note: cyg-wrapper is required on my Cygwin system to find the real file.
    # Indeed, Mutt is compiled for Cygwin while Vim is compiled for MsWindows only.

Related Links

Sven Guckes's «Mutt on MsWindows (cygwin)» site.
My .muttrc and a presentation I gave (in French only at this time).