Linux without sighted help

[Tony Baechler]

Hi,

Yes, you are correct in a general way, but there are many programs that 
absolutely won't compile under Cygwin.  C-Kermit comes to mind and there 
is no good reason why it shouldn't work.  Other programs will compile 
but are useless because Cygwin doesn't support tty/pty pairs.  You don't 
"run" a Linux kernel but you use it to boot the OS.  Also, brltty runs 
under DOS, so saying that it runs under Cygwin isn't saying much.  If 
any brave people want to try compiling Kermit under Cygwin, that would 
be much appreciated but I've read threads from various mailing lists 
saying that it won't work.  It compiled perfectly under Debian Sarge.  
Yes, the experience with speech leaves much to be desired because 
Windows screen readers don't do console apps very well.  I must add here 
that I use ssh under Cygwin on an almost daily basis with no trouble at 
all.  One last word on Kermit.  It claims to compile on any *nix OS 
imaginable yet Cygwin just won't work.  There are instructions for any 
BSD and old Linux versions, and even DOS and Apple II versions.

Lee Maschmeyer wrote:
> As I said, I use Cygwin for light tasks. And modern Cygwin will run a 
> rather impressive bunch of *nix programs. If there's a difference 
> between an emulator and a simulator that may be important to 
> dictionary writers, but the main thing here is that you can switch 
> between Unix and Windows stuff without having to reboot. If you use 
> brltty the experience is much closer to Linux than if you use speech.
>
> I'm curious as to how one runs a kernel under Linux.
>
> There are things that Cygwin won't do but there are an awful lot of 
> them that it will. How it compares with a virtual machine I have no idea.