GNU tools under Windows

In Harmony

Article from ADMIN 11/2012

By Thomas Drilling

Many admins are responsible for heterogeneous IT environments. Those who want use the popular Bash and GNU tools under Windows can either install the Cygwin compatibility layer or try Gow, the more slender alternative.

Many administrators consider Bash and the GNU tools to be indispensable standard utilities for routine administrative tasks. For more than 20 years, the Bash Unix/Linux command shell, developed in 1987 by Brian Fox, has indisputably been one of the most powerful and popular tools for gaining access to the system level of Unix-based operating systems. Bash's popularity is not just a function of its built-in commands. The ability to work with shell scripts is an elegant way to consolidate repetitive commands or to write programs that complete complex and intelligent tasks.

Besides these "internal" commands, Bash also includes control structures that make it possible to call up useful GNU tools, which usually make up the largest part of complex Bash scripts. Therefore, the ability to use Bash and GNU tools to control Windows machines is interesting for several reasons. For one, its internal commands and control structures make Bash much more powerful than a simple Windows "command prompt," even for simple filesystem operations. Only PowerShell is slowly starting to bring a tool with similar potential to the Windows world.

GNU Under Windows

Tools like Gow (Gnu on Windows) bring a multitude of powerful GNU tools to Windows – among them, classics for text editing, powerful filesystem utilities, and the most important SSH tools. Incidentally, Gow also makes it possible for users who are considering switching to Linux to get accustomed to the Unix directory structure and the Bash command line without having to install an emulator or a virtual machine.

Gow Instead of Cygwin

Developed by Brent Matzelle, Gow [1] was conceived as a compact alternative to Cygwin. Gow, which is hosted on GitHub, is free software provided under the MIT license. Cygwin, on the

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