Hi, I would like to know what are the differences between Cygwin and MinGW. From what I undertood, MinGW provides a unix-like compiling enviroment that lets me use make, gcc and other programs, while CygWin is very similar, but thus provides a run time library that emulates some unix funcs not present in windows (like signals and fork()). MinGW compiles native windows code from portable programs and the resulting exe doesn't need the presence of MinGW while CygWin lets you compile not completely portable code but the final exe needs a run time library of CygWin (you can avoid this by using a specific parameter with gcc). Did I undestand correctly? And a question: While running the shell of MingGW, an error says that it was not able to allocate the stack memory for CygWin. Note that on the same system Cygwin works. What can I do? Thank you!

I'm pretty sure that MingW refers just to the compiler, gcc for windows, the shell distributed with it is technically MSYS. But that's just a technicality, I still understand what you're asking.

I've used both, and to me it seems that Cygwin is a complete unix shell emulation, it can even run a stripped down graphical desktop. MSYS is based on Cygwin IIRC, but is only the core necessities needed for development, whereas cygwin has a fancy update system and additional dependencies the average developer needs.

I'd recommend using MSYS/MingW unless you actually need Cygwin, I found that MSYS is more managable, whereas Cygwin was overkill for simple development.

>>cygwin is a linux emulator.

Are you sure? I know it can compile linux code, but I'm not sure wether it can run linux programs...

>>I'm pretty sure that MingW refers just to the compiler, gcc for windows, the shell distributed with it is technically MSYS.

Yes, you're right...

>>I'd recommend using MSYS/MingW unless you actually need Cygwin, I found that MSYS is more managable, whereas Cygwin was overkill for simple development.

I thought the same, but I gen an error each time I run the shell... Does someone know why?

I don't think cygwin can run linux executables (ELF format)

I could probably help you get msys running if you gave me a few more details about the error, does it occur when you try to start msys? what does it say/do?

The error is:

C:\msys\1.0\bin\sh.exe: *** Couldn't reserve space for cygwin's heap, Win32 error 6

It happens when I run the shell of Msys. After that, the shell closes.

I have WindowsXP Pro Service Pack 1. CygWin works correctly.