Yes, I understand but normally I don't do much on my laptop, just install software using the standard MS installer packages, use MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint and surf the net, maybe user a few other tools like CloudBerry.

I guess I am not smart enough to know what to do with a Linux emulator on XP, LOL

What can we do? We can't run the find command and change owner and groups can we, since XP does not have users and group the same as Unix and Linux systems. I don't need to VI when using XP. I don't run servers on XP, only Linux. The filesystem is completely different, isn't that right?

So, at least for me, "When in Roman do as the Romans" "When on Linux, do at Linux" and "When on XP, do XP"......

Anyway, nice try, but I am still unconvinced to install Cygwin on my XP laptop !

Any anyone has a good reason to do so, please convince me

I did one better. I trashed Cygwin and am keeping my Kubuntu Wubi install.
The one thing that's keeping me from ousting Windows XP from this box is that, having used iView Media Pro (and now M$ Expression Media) for many years, and having gotten used to all its nice little annotation-field auto-completes etc. (great for the lazy typist like YT), the lack of a directly analogous application (call it a "clone" if you want) in any of the Linuxes I'm familiar with, keeps me from doing so.

And to my mind running Wine for the sake of one application seems more than a bit trifling and wasteful of hard-disk space and resources. Call me crazy, but since even my router configuration page is Firefox-friendly (where it used to be strictly IE-friendly), I don't see much need to put a "whole other Windows" on, even in emulation, for just one proprietary app.

I've found reasonably good, and in many cases better, analogues for many of the other apps I've got installed here in Windows. And having been a Mac OS X home user (5 years, which means 2 boxes and 3 versions), I'm just more comfortable in a Linux, especially when it comes to the command line (I've coined the term "jackwhack" to describe the Windows path-delineation slash). You could argue that keeping Windows for "the sake of one app" is just as weak an argument, and you'd be right. Sometimes those of us humans who came up using proprietary OSes -- before OS X rolled out I'd used those versions which Apple calls "OS 9" and many of us users refer to as "classic Mac" or, more appropriately, "legacy MacOS" -- with iffy, shifty, heavily-patched api foundations etc, can't quite "cut the cord" altogether.

Heck, if there was something in Linux closer to Portfolio or Canto Cumulus, I'd give some serious thought to switching over, full-stop.

Thank you for the help.

BZT

Thanks. I added Wubi to the Links Directory.

Wubi - Ubuntu Installer for Windows - Links