I have managed a successful install of Cygwin (after a few tries), and like any sensible person am ignoring the console in favour of the xconsole. I have this set up how I want - tcsh, all hot-keys (including ^z for suspend) and et cetera, but find it awfully slow. Are there any good alternatives? I grew up with bash, and then became a csh user (hence the tcsh), but am willing to try something new if it is less unwieldy.

I find "Microsoft Services for UNIX 3.5" a much more authentic and responsive POSIX environment.

Alas, it does not provide an X server, so I either use Xming or Cygwin to provide the X server then use xterm in SFU.

If you are using Vista, Microsoft SFU is now known as SUA (Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications) and is only available for Vista Ultimate or Vista Enterprise.

Another "Cygwin-like" environment you may like to try is the Dave Korn/Glen Fowler/etc. UWIN
package which is available at:

research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin

.... another reason to avoid Vista.

...so if Iwant an x-window, I guess I'm stuck with cygwin...thanks for your input, Mr Porter.

I also think that vista is rubbish!

Not really, you could use Xming to provide the Xserver and SFU to provide the X clients.

xming? I don't mind telling you that it took more than a week to get cygwin how I wanted it; is xming any better? I should perhaps warn you that I am more of a Sun UNIX user than a Windows buff - will not apologize for that...