How can I open a cygwin terminal?

Question

I am using Windows 8 and installed cygwin. However, when I go to the folder in which it is contained, the only subfolders are usr and var, and none of them contain what looks like a terminal. How can I open a cygwin terminal?

Answer 1

For this you must use the mintty executable. In the case of the default installation path, it is here: c:\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe Installing Cygwin places a shortcut in the start menu, but this function may have been violated in win8. I checked this shortcut on my computer and it contains this command as the "Target":

 C:\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe -i /Cygwin-Terminal.ico - 

You must create a shortcut like this. Replace this path if your cygwin is located elsewhere. -i command line argument is not required. For more information, check out the mintty page here .

Answer 2

You can run

c: \ program files \ cygwin \ bin \ bash.exe

inside CMD Windows.

Answer 3

When installing cygwin, the ".bat" file is usually installed at the top of the directory tree containing cygwin, which can launch a command window. For instance:

  @echo off C: chdir C:\cygwin64\bin bash --login -i > 

The exact location of the cygwin tree is relevant to the script, of course, and the details sometimes change. But the bash executable, starting with the cygwin bin directory, is enough to launch a window.

Outside of cygwin, you won't see things like installed directories and symbolic links. Therefore (from the Windows file explorer) it may look incomplete.