Linux is great for programming compared to Windows. If you miss the experience you get on Linux, maybe you should try Cygwin, which set up a Linux-like environment on Windows platform. In this post, I want to talk about how to configure Cygwin and how to use mintty terminal on Windows 10 to get excellent programming experience.

How to install new packages?#

There is no official way to install a new package. Just run the Cygwin setup tool one more time and select the package you want to install. It will not rewrite the package you have installed, only the new package will be installed.

If the package download speed is slow, you can choose a local mirror for Cygwin. In China, TUNA is good.

Reference#

• https://superuser.com/a/304543/736190

When I use ssh to connect to my server, I got an error message “Pseudo-terminal will not be allocated because stdin is not a terminal”#

On Windows 10, there is a built-in ssh program under C:/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/ssh.exe. You are probably using this program. If that is the case, you have to install openssh yourself. Just run the Cygwin setup program one more time to install the additional package. Then this issue should disappear.

Reference#

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/18091711/6064933

Mintty settings#

Cygwin use the popular mintty terminal as its terminal emulator. In this part, I document several settings related to mintty.

How do I set up the mintty terminal emulator type, i.e., TERM variable?#

Right-click Cygwin window title and choose Options..., go to Terminal, and choose Type to be xterm-256color. That is all.

How to use an external color theme for mintty?#

By default, mintty provides a few color themes. The color theme for mintty are just a list of settings for different colors. There are several places where you can find mintty themes. A non-exhaustive list is:

• https://github.com/oumu/mintty-color-schemes
• A python tool with several built-in color themes, https://github.com/joakimkarlsson/mintty-colors
• How do I change colors on-the-fly in mintty?

Save the color theme file under $CYGWIN_ROOT/usr/share/mintty/themes. Open mintty options (right click on Cygwin title bar), go to Looks pane and choose from the Theme pull-down menu a color theme you want to use.

Alternatively, create a .minttyrc file under your HOME. Paste the content of color theme in this file and save it. The next time you open Cygwin, mintty will automatically use the configurations in .minttyrc.

References#

• https://github.com/mintty/mintty/wiki/Tips#using-colour-schemes-themes

How do I configure mintty to use the settings from a config file and what are the available options?#

As I have said, create a .minttyrc under your HOME, and put mintty settings in this file. To see all the options available, visit this page.

How to open URL in browser#

In the iTerm terminal, we can click a URL to open it in the browser, which is convenient. Actually mintty also supports this feature.

But sometimes, Ctrl+click won’t work properly. It has something to do with the mouse mode of various programs. When mouse mode is enabled for Neovim and Tmux, to open a URL in browser, I have to use Ctrl+Shift+click . If the mouse mode is turned off, I can open a URL with just Ctrl+click.

References#

• https://github.com/mintty/mintty/issues/694
• https://github.com/mintty/mintty/issues/164

How to update mintty?#

It is the same as you install or update other packages. Run setup_x86_64.exe and install the latest version of Mintty.