Installing Cygwin is straightforward, but those who haven’t installed any UNIX-based OSs before may be lost at the last step. So here are the steps:

1. Download the Cygwin setup file, if you haven’t already.

2. Choose the installation type: Install from Internet or Install from Local Directory or Download without Installing. When installing Cygwin for the first time, you’ll have to choose either the first or the last option unless you already have the packages through some other means. I tend to choose the last for two reasons. One, network issues while downloading are preferrable to network issues while installing. Two, a reinstall for whatever reason is faster and smoother from a local directory. However, this will consume a few hundred MB to just download. Disk space these days isn’t an issue anyway.

3. Choose the root directory. I’ll talk about this structure later. Default options usually suffice, but if you have to choose, choose a new empty folder in a drive with several hundred MB disk space, say, E:\cygwin.

4. Even if you’re installing from the Internet directly, a few logs with setup-related information are created during installation. These logs are important for the setup file to recognize the existing states of various packages. Specify where you want these logs to reside in.

5. Choose a mirror that is closest to your location, or just pick any.

6. This is the major step, of choosing the packages. You could simply skip this step, whereby the default base packages will be installed. To experiment more, it will be worth your time to browse through these packages and select a few additional ones. Dependencies like underlying packages and libraries are selected automatically when you choose a package.

There are five modes of View: Category/Full/Partial/Up To Date/Not Installed. Choose the “Category” mode. Every package has a line of info written about it to the right. That should give an idea. I’ll mention the packages being used in the future posts where and when required.

The next step will end the process. If you’re first downloading the packages from the Internet, then you will have to rerun the Cygwin setup file, this time with the “Install from Local Directory” option and let all those packages downloaded be installed.

We’ll use Cygwin, starting with customizing the terminal from next week.

Image Source: Cygwin screenshot from my PC.

Why, even the big dogs (read: companies) still have very “small” IT departments. No, I don’t mean they have little people or even a small number of people — they do have a small-group feeling, though. Having recently switched from a company of a few thousand to one of tens of thousands of people, I’ve learned something very quickly…

Every company out there has to run about the same way. Sure, a publicly traded company has rules and regulations they must follow but when it comes down to the real work, it takes small teams of people to get the jobs done.

Take for example, a recent need — a few switches installed in a data center. These were not production switches but they were being used for development and testing, so they were no laughing matter. Rather than the normal steps:

1. Submit a ticket (with a difficult system)
2. Wait for a reply from the helpdesk (shouldn’t take more than 2 hours for them to type in a ticket)
3. Talk to the person the ticket is assigned to (good luck reaching them by phone, email or telepathy)
4. Go back and forth with IT and the group that needs the switches (because IT likes to feel real important)
5. Order the parts (even though they exist somewhere else in an old storage area)
6. Wait for an outtage window (that isn’t necessary because it’s not production)
7. Have the switches installed and tested (that means, make sure the lights are on)

The way that a good IT department handles it is by skipping steps 3-6. In most organizations, that just saved 2 weeks worth of waiting time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to keep track of what everyone is working on. It’s even more important to test things, especially if they might impact something else. But it’s not always necessary for IT to put up a tough image that says, “I am IT and I can put you off and make you wait for my help because you have no option.”

Next time, the finance or HR guy needs a bit of help, keep in mind, you have to give a little to get a little — And sometimes, acting little isn’t always bad either.

Photo credits: clayirving on flickr