10/23/2017 Cygwin Cheat Sheet - voxforge.

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Cygwin Cheat Sheet

The Cygwin Console (i.e. the Cygwin Bash Shell) is where you will execute all your
HTK/Julius commands and scripts, and your VoxForge scripts. It provides a Linux-like
environment to execute your commands

Starting Cygwin
Open your Cygwin Console by clicking:
Start>All Programs>Cygwin>Cygwin Bash Shell.

Working with Directories

When you start a Cygwin Console, you are automatically sent to your Cygwin home
directory - which usually corresponds to your Windows username. All Windows users
on your system should have a home directory with a Windows path of:
c:\cygwin\home\[Windows Username]
To find out what your home directory name is type the 'pwd' (i.e. print working
directory) command in a newly opened Cygwin Console. In this example my home
directory is called 'Administrator':

$pwd
/home/Administrator

Note on Cygwin directories

Cywin uses the Linux standard approach to
naming directory paths - which uses the forward
slash "/" to separate directories, rather than the
Windows approach with uses the backward slash
"\" to separate directories.
Cygwin does not use the [drive letter + ":"]
notation to denote your root directory on a hard
disk - i.e. there is no "c:" drive in Cygwin. The
Cygwin root directory is denoted by a single
forward slash "/".

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Directory Structure
Cygwin attempts to duplicate the directory structure of a Linux System within the
"c:\cygwin" folder:

Windows location Cygwin Console

c:\cygwin\bin /bin
c:\cygwin\etc /etc
c:\cygwin\home /home
c:\cygwin\home\administrator /home/administrator
c:\cygwin\lib /lib
c:\cygwin\tmp /tmp
c:\cygwin\usr /usr
c:\cygwin\var /var
c:\cygwin /

Creating Files
When creating directories and files in your home directory in Cygwin, remember that
you can use Windows Explorer to create a file, and Windows Wordpad to edit it (see
below for the Cygwin commands to do this). For example, if you need to create a file
in the following Cygwin directory:

/home/[your home directory]/voxforge/manual,

then start Windows Explorer, go to this directory

c:\cygwin\home\[your home directory\voxforge\manual

and click 'File>New>Text Document' in Windows Explorer to create an empty file.

Then use Windows Wordpad to edit it, by doubling-clicking the new file, and selecting
WordPad from the 'Open With ...' selection window.

Note: If you create a file directly in WordPad, when

you save it WordPad will try to append a '.txt' or '.rtf'
suffix to your file name.

Cutting and Pasting Content from Windows to Cygwin

from the Windows application:
highlight the text to be copied;
right-click and select copy from right-click menu (or hit ctrl-c key combination);
go to Cygwin window:
right-click Cygwin window header
select Edit>Paste from the right-click menu
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Extracting Gzipped Tar files in Windows

The 7-Zip program can unzip and untar Linux gzipped tar files from Windows
Explorer. Once installed, you simply right-click the file you want to unzip and/or untar
in Windows Explorer, and select 7-Zip from the right-click menu. If your file is
gzipped and tarred, you need to execute the 7-Zip extract twice: first on the .tgz file,
and then again on the generated .tar file.
It is Open Source and licenced under LGPL. It can be obtained at:

http://www.7-zip.org/

You can also use the Cywin tar command (see below)

Common Cygwin commands:

Working with Files
cp <filename> <new filename>
copy - Make a copy of a file

cp -R <directory> <new directory>

Make a copy of a directory

mv <filename> <new filename>

move - Move or rename a file
rm <filename>
remove - Delete a file

Working with Directories

cd <directory>
change directory - Change to the directory specified
ls
List - Lists the files in the current directory

ls -l
Lists the files and their attributes
mkdir <new directory name>
make directory - Create a new directory
pwd
Path of working directory - tells you what directory you are in

Archiving/Extracting Files and Directories

tar -zcvf <filename> <directory> # create gzipped tar archive of
<directory>
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-z - filter the archive through gzip

-c - create a new archive
-v - verbosely list files processed
-f - use archive file
tar -xvzf <filename> # extract tarred, gzipped <filename> in current directory
-x - extract files from an archive
-v - verbosely list files processed
-z - filter the archive through gzip
-f - use archive file

Working with File Permissions:

chmod u+x <filename>
changes permission of the named file to executable.
u - user, (this means you)
+ - adds permissions
x - executable rights
You can get further details on any commands in Cygwin by using the 'info' or the
'man' command. These provide essentially the same information, but with slightly
different formatting. To obtain detailed information on the 'mv' for example, you
would type one of the following:

$info mv
$man mv

to exit info or man, type the letter 'q' at the ":" prompt.

Comments
Search

Cygwin find command

By gbs - 5/5/2016

Thank you
By rupelto - 3/19/2014

Thank you for sharing your knowledge , i feel less stressed.

very usefull
By dheeraj - 4/11/2013 - 1 Replies

i want to change my command from $ to # command...is it possible just like shell scripting in linux based terminals

commands which execute first

By Kostas V - 3/29/2013 - 1 Replies

Hello I want to ask a question. I have this coomand:

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10/23/2017 Cygwin Cheat Sheet - voxforge.org

Thank You!
By Curtis S. - 9/13/2012 - 1 Replies

Thank you for your very approachable list of basic commands. It would be extremely helpful if the Cygwin community
could maintain something similar with all of the major commands for packages installed by default. Coming from the
Windows side, the major reason Unix isn't making more headway is because of a lack of simpler, clearer instructions
on using the OS. Windows users are not stupid, we just come from a very different type of computing. Once we know
our way around, trust me when I say that we will start pushing to find out what Cygwin's true capabilities are. We like to
know what our system's capabilities are to maximize performance.

List Paths to Hard Drives?

By Viking - 8/22/2012

How can I list the paths to the hard drives?

Cygwin copy+paste
By Radu - 10/20/2008 - 9 Replies

There is an easier way to copy+paste in Cygwin (found it just today, after 3 months of torment).

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