Use Cygwin command from powershell

Question

Use Cygwin command from powershell

Susja 751

Hello
I widely use Unix/Posix like commands in my daily activities.
I have only Windows environments.
For that reason I use utility called MobaXterm which is built on top of Cygwin and allow me to use utilities like awk, sed, Grep and etc.
I noticed that Power shell on my PC works significantly faster than MobaXterm hence I want to use it from inside the powershell.
E.g. instead of using poweshell ‘Select-String’ I want to use Cygwin’grep’
How should I do it? Could I change the path to MobaXterm bin directory to make powershell aware of it? Or something similar?
Note: I do not have admin privilege on my PC
Appreciate your help

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Answer 1

Rich Matheisen 47,901

PowerShell, like bash, Bourne, Csh, is just a shell. MobaXterm provides a X-Server (a graphical wrapper) in which you can run a shell. But all the utilities in a classical Unix/Linux server would only need a basic shell to work because they work with text files and need a TTY interface to work. MobaXterm is more for your convenience than a requirement to use CygWin.

You just have to tell whatever shell you use where your stuff lives: Try this how-to-run-cygwin-script-in-powershell

Susja 751 Reputation points

2022-09-12T00:15:16.783+00:00

Folks,
both suggestions are interesting.
Let me try first to follow @Rich Matheisen suggestion. In case I fail .. I will start to look and learn suggestion of @MotoX80
BTW: I did the test and ran simultaneously in PowerShell and Cygwin 'Select-String' and 'grep' against the same pattern. It looks that my 'feeling' that Powershell is faster was wrong : in both cases it took practically the same amount of time.
Thanks
Susja 751 Reputation points

2022-09-12T01:15:01.107+00:00

Well ... I like your proposal and would like to follow it.
I did the following:
$env:path = '$env:path + ";c:\Software\MobaXterm_Portable_v22.0\slash\bin'
After that I was able to run 'grep' and all other Cygwin commands. It looks that I was all set ... BUT unfortunately it worked only in the current shell.
In order to make this change permanent likely I need to modify profile file but I don't have admin privileges hence I won't be able to do it.
Sounds like I don't have other choice other than start to learn PowerShell equivalent of Cygwin.
Well ... I was so close ..

Thanks anyway
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-09-12T01:45:24.893+00:00

Try adding that code to your PowerShell profile.
Susja 751 Reputation points

2022-09-12T01:56:10.517+00:00

richmatheisen-8856 - I don’t have admin permission and can’t save the file.
On the other hand the main reason for me to use Powershell was my impression that ‘Unix-like' utilities worked faster in Powershell than in Cygwin.
My test demo that it was wrong impression and both run same hence I don’t see big advantage to use Powershell
Thanks
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-09-12T02:12:42.457+00:00

Just to verify which profile you're altering, is this the one? $Home\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

The $Home should be your users home directory.

I'm not advocating you run either PowerShell or CygWin. You can use CMD.exe to start whatever shell you want from the CygWin install without using MobaXterm and all the overhead involved with XWindows client/server stuff.
Susja 751 Reputation points

2022-09-12T13:30:57.06+00:00
Well ... I didn't find profile file in location you pointed:
PS C:\Users\myaccount\Documents> ls $HOME/Documents

Directory: C:\Users\myaccount\Documents

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 8/17/2022 9:03 PM Power BI Desktop
d----- 9/8/2022 5:54 PM SQL Server Management Studio

PS C:\Users\myaccount\Documents>
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-09-12T14:40:55.95+00:00

Can you not create the missing "PowerShell" directory in your own home directory? There isn't a "PowerShell_profile.ps1" file created by default. That's up to each user to do.
Susja 751 Reputation points

2022-09-12T16:39:15.74+00:00

I created the file and put this line:
$env:path = '$env:path + ";c:\Software\MobaXterm_Portable_v22.0\slash\bin'

It did not take effect after I started a new terminal. Likely need to put it somewhere to get loaded when start a new shell?

Thanks
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-09-12T17:53:14.117+00:00

Your profile should be loaded into every PowerShell session. I.e., every time you start PowerShell.
Susja 751 Reputation points

2022-09-12T22:23:36.98+00:00

I understand that but it's not in my case.
Now the profile file does exist but does not take effect
Am I missing something here?
Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-09-13T01:57:22.807+00:00

Maybe. I just created a profile and placef in the correct place in my home directory. Every time I start a new PowerShell session I get exactly what I expected.

Answer 2

If you only have Windows environments, then why don't you just use native Powershell commands? If you don't have admin access, then you will have trouble getting 3rd party Unix command emulators installed on all of the machines that you need to support.

Yes, you will have a learning curve but they should run faster and you can take advantage of all of the Powershell cmdlets. Powershell has aliases so you will find that commands like "ls" work.

PS C:\> get-alias  
  
CommandType     Name  
-----------     ----  
Alias           % -> ForEach-Object  
Alias           ? -> Where-Object  
Alias           ac -> Add-Content  
Alias           cat -> Get-Content  
Alias           cd -> Set-Location  
Alias           chdir -> Set-Location  
Alias           clc -> Clear-Content  
Alias           clear -> Clear-Host  
Alias           cls -> Clear-Host  
Alias           compare -> Compare-Object  
Alias           copy -> Copy-Item  
Alias           cp -> Copy-Item  
Alias           cpi -> Copy-Item  
Alias           cpp -> Copy-ItemProperty  
Alias           curl -> Invoke-WebRequest  
Alias           del -> Remove-Item  
Alias           diff -> Compare-Object  
Alias           dir -> Get-ChildItem  
Alias           echo -> Write-Output  
Alias           erase -> Remove-Item  
Alias           kill -> Stop-Process  
Alias           lp -> Out-Printer  
Alias           ls -> Get-ChildItem  
Alias           man -> help  
Alias           md -> mkdir

https://mathieubuisson.github.io/powershell-linux-bash/

You can also run PS script's that emulate Unix commands like grep here.

https://github.com/jagilber/powershellScripts/blob/master/grep.ps1

Here is a good reference document.

https://www.sapien.com/books_training/Windows-PowerShell-4

Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-09-11T15:23:42.57+00:00

I don't want to sound rude, but you clearly have never used a *nix version of grep. The PowerShell script you referred him to is a weak imitation of grep!

grep.1.html

Also, I'm not sure the PowerShell is POSIX-compliant (I don't know of any certification "authority" that does that sort of testing). The Windows Services for Linux (WSL), or whatever they're calling it now) is. But if you're going to use that you don't need CygWin!

Because *nix utilities work with text files they (IMO) far outstrip PowerShell for text manipulation without the need for "object-aware" programming (i.e., "cmdlets").

All the above is just my opinion. Feel free to ignore it. :-)
MotoX80 36,291 Reputation points

2022-09-12T01:15:21.007+00:00

You are correct that I have very limited Unix experience.

My point was that if a user was accustomed to typing in "grep something" then it shouldn't be that hard to build a grep.ps1 that effectively recreated that functionality. Or "awk something" or whatever.

This MobaXterm software looks like it's effectively an "RDP session" via SSH/X-Windows which likely isn't very efficient.

And the argument (taken to the extreme) that; "I still want to use the CP/M commands that I used back in 1982 because that's what I know" is fine, but if you have to support multiple machines and you don't have admin access to install the tools that you would prefer then you are somewhat limited to native tools so you might as well "bite the bullet" and start using native PS commands instead of trying to find a way to emulate Unix on Windows.

I think that the OP is also missing the point that: if I know both PS and Unix shell commands then that looks better on my resume because I can help support both environments

Answer 3

Susja 751

Well I think I figured it out.
It looks to me that my organization forces users to run Powershell from another location. When I created powershell profile in that location ... next time I started the shell it took effect but prevented to run due to the policy.
I think that now it's clear why my change before did not take effect.
Thanks for your help

Rich Matheisen 47,901 Reputation points

2022-09-14T01:55:06.92+00:00

Check the execution policy. It may be set to "AllSigned". If that's the case, ask your admin to sign your PowerShell profile.

I gotta say, that it sounds like security policy at your organization might be a little shortsighted. You can install, and run, an entirely different set of software (CygWin) to the rest of the company; a suite of utilities that allows you to format devices, compile your own executables (using "C" or "C++") run Perl and Python scripts (I'm guessing there's no impediment to your running those), and do a lot more.

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Use Cygwin command from powershell

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