CyGNOME - Cygwin GNOME

CyGNOME = Cygwin + GNOME

Project Goal

The Cygwin GNOME project aims to port the GNOME desktop to Windows OS, using Cygwin as a porting tool and user environment.

Currently, this project is based on the Cygwin GNOME patches contributed by Steven O'Brien. Without his great work (and some others' efforts), this project won't come to reality. And at present, this site is mainly providing binary package releases of Steven O'Brien's port(see below). We also port some additional applications to Cygwin, also based on those libraries.

GNOME2 Logo

One year passed since first time Steven O'Brien published his great works. Currently the core libraries and core desktop programs of GNOME 1.4 are almost done. Thus we started Cygwin GNOME 2.x as a new project a few days ago.

And as a perspective we want to make progress toward using Windows' native GUI, but at present this project still depends on XFree86. Maybe libW11 is a way out.

To make maximum use of the power of Cygwin (together with the libraries and applications already ported to Cygwin), currently we have no plan to make any effort toward -no-cygwin option (i.e. to create the native Windows applications). Please visit http://www.gimp.org/win32 for some info regarding that aspect.

Some complain that projects like CyGNOME is preventing 'Windows users' from 'converting' to *NIX. This is not true, we belive it is the other way. To clear these doubt please see article by Joshua Lokken an answer to those who complained about KDE-Cygwin (a similar project, more KDE users comments, more KDE-Cygwin Press Articles)

What Is Cygwin?

Cygwin is a UNIX environment, developed by Red Hat, for Windows. It consists of two parts:
* A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a UNIX emulation layer providing substantial UNIX API functionality.
* A collection (a large one now) of tools, ported from UNIX, which provide UNIX/Linux look and feel.

The Cygwin DLL works with all non-beta, ix86 versions of Windows since Windows 95, with the exception of Windows CE.

What is GNOME?

GNOME is a user-friendly desktop environment that enables users to easily use and configure their computers. GNOME includes a panel (for starting applications and displaying status), a desktop (where data and applications can be placed), a set of standard desktop tools and applications, and a set of conventions that make it easy for applications to cooperate and be consistent with each other. Users of other operating systems or environments should feel right at home using the powerful graphics-driven environment GNOME provides.

GNOME is completely open source (free software), with freely available source code developed by hundreds of programmers around the world. If you would like to learn more about the GNOME project please visit the GNOME web site.

GNOME is an acronym for the GNU Network Object Model Environment, so GNOME is a part of the larger GNU project. The GNU Project started in 1984 to develop a completely free Unix-like operating system. If you'd like to learn more about the GNU project you can read about it at the GNU Website.

Porting GNOME to Cygwin

Steven O'Brien's Cygwin GNOME patches

As mentioned above, this project currently is based on the Cygwin GNOME patches contributed by Steven O'Brien [steven.obrien2 at ntlworld.com]. It is a DLL approach to port GNOME to Cygwin. Please visit http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steven.obrien2 for detailed info.

Some other efforts on porting GNOME to Cygwin:

XMLinux: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley/1596/en/cygwin.html
This site maintains a list of tips on compiling GNOME libraries and applications.

Eric Lassauge's Cygwin/XFree86 contributions: http://lassauge.free.fr/cygwin/
There are some statically linked libs and apps, along with xscreensaver, xlockmore etc.

Other Cygwin ports:

KDE-Cygwin The KDE on Cygwin project is simliar to CyGNOME, which aims to enable the KDE (The K Desktop Environment) on Windows OS based on Cygwin (the posix emulation layer for Windows), the xfree86 server and the qt library (qtlib). It was started a long time ago, and have already successfully ported QT1/KDE1, QT2/KDE2 and QT3 to Cygwin. Now it is obsessed with Win32 native port of QT.
Home page : http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

gtk2 on Cygwin: Web site by Masahiro Sakai [ s01397ms at sfc.keio.ac.jp ] offering gtk2 binaries and patches for cygwin, this include pango, ruby etc.
Link http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~s01397ms/cygwin/

___GNOME on CYGWIN___ Web site by Jong B. Lee [jbdoll at kepri.re.kr] offering binaries and patches for Cygwin this include GNU libiconv, XFce, Imlib+ etc.
Link http://my.dreamwiz.com/jbdoll/

Other approaches to port GTK+ application to Windows

GIMP (and GTK+) for Win32:
Win32 native support of GTK+ (mainly 2.x), supported by Tor Lillqvist (tml) , using MS VC or MinGW as compiler.
Their work is integrated with the mainline gnome development. And many GTK+ based applications use it to provide their Win32 port, such as GIMP, Sylpheed-Claws, Gaim, etc.