:author: Keith F. Prussing, Ph.D.
:date: 2017-01-19
:template: post.html

Unified Command Line in Windows
===============================

.. container:: abstract

    Some working notes on getting a unified terminal experience on
    Windows.  The ultimate problem is every tool set for Windows wants
    to install a complete GNU environment and doesn't bother checking if
    you already have one installed.  The ultimate kicker is: you
    basically can't do it.

Have you ever tried to install some command line tool for Windows and
noticed that every single one wants to install a full MinGW tool chain?
Yeah, I noticed that too.  The problem is each one knows nothing about
the other and does not play well.  Couple that with the path mangling in
CygWin and I started to get fed up.

So, I went back to MSys.  At some point, I will get around to adding the
links back in.  So far, I have::

    $ pacman -Syuu
    $ pacman -S man git vim zsh

And I installed the x86_64 compiler just to be safe.

To get MSys to respect the Windows path (and be able to find the system
Python and Pandoc and MikTex and ...) set [MSYS2_PATH_TYPE=inherit].  I
still haven't found how to change the default shell without
`editing <shell>`_ ``msys2_shell.cmd``.

Well, I just realized we need CygWin anyway.  It has an X server.
Combine that with offlineimap and mutt simply work, and that points to
the idea that we should just use MSys as a useable terminal.

.. _shell: http://superuser.com/questions/961699/change-default-shell-on-msys2