Eddie Parker wrote:
> 
> roger wrote:
>> On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 14:30 -0800, Eddie Parker wrote:
>>
>>   
>>> Anyhow, is there anyone listening/reading this mailing list anymore?  
>>> What's the status of this project, if so?
>>>     
>>
>> I'm listening, but there hasn't been much activity as far as I know.
>>
>> I think most would rather spend time programming a native linux program.
>>
>> 4 or 5 years ago, I used to spend time debugging programs for porting to
>> cygwin or windows, but I have advanced to other things now.
>>
>>   
> I can't say I blame you.  I've been following the instructions on the 
> wiki [1], and while I've got it working, it seems that most packages 
> require tweaking to get to work...  I can imagine the debugging would be 
> intensive to, when things don't work. :(
> 
> That said, if there are people who are interested in this sort of stuff, 
> it might be nice to see what the status of the previous project 
> was(/is?).  Top of my mind are questions such as:
> 
> 1.- Does anyone know if the Gentoo community is/was willing to have the 
> 'Cygwin' arch as a 'supported' arch within portage?  [2]
> 2.- Did any of the previous maintainers/visionaries for this project 
> have any thoughts about replacing in-use files such as Python?  Be-it 
> through windows' typical "reboot" methodology or some such?
> 3.- At the very least, was it/would it be possible to have a script that 
> create a portage overlay from Cygwin's setup.ini, so you can get binary 
> packages installed with emerge as a start?
> 
> I'm not naive enough to think I'm the only one to've thought of these 
> things, so I'm actually just curious if there were technical limitations 
> to any/all of these that I'm not aware of.  Just trying to get a read of 
> how this project went!
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -e-
> 
> [1] http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Gentoo_on_Cygwin
> [2] I'm not sure if I'm using the right terminology, basically to have 
> it be an ACCEPTED_KEYWORD, and having ebuilds as part of portage that 
> support it?
> 

I don't run Cygwin at home, but I do run it at work. I have never even 
attempted to use Gentoo Cygwin. Quite frankly, Cygwin is a crutch. It 
has no practical business use cases on a Windows server (not that there 
are many practical business use cases for Windows servers in general, 
given the license costs.) :)

On a desktop, nearly all of the open source applications that I use have 
native Windows ports now, and some of them, for example R, actually have 
a *better* user interface than the original Linux version. Basically, if 
you want a Linux desktop, you're better off installing Linux, and if you 
need a mixed Windows/Linux desktop, you're better off with VMware 
Workstation.

Finally, if you are a die-hard Cygwin fan, there is Cygwin-Ports, a 
community that is far more active than Gentoo Cygwin. And Cygwin's 
package management system isn't all that bad on its own. But it ain't Linux.
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