Cygwin

Installation

Download and run setup.exe - install it in C:\cygwin (It doesn't really like paths with spaces like 'Program Files')

Install these packages:

Category      Packages
Archive/      zip, unzip
Devel/        cvs
Editors/      vim
Interpreters/ python
Net/          openssh
Web/          wget
X11/          X-start-menu-icons, xorg-x11-fscl, xwinclip

Configuration

Edit Startup Script

I like to use xterm and have an XServer ready for use. Furthermore, I have my 'homedir' in C:\schmid. So, we change C:\Cygwin\cygwin.bat accordingly:

@echo off

C:
chdir C:\cygwin\bin
set HOME=C:\schmid     <- insert this

rem bash --login -i    <- comment this out
call c:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\startxwin.bat

And symlink /home - we start bash and enter:

$ ln -s /cygdrive/c /home

If you want to have your homedir in C:\Documents and Settings, you could do something like this:

set "HOME=C:\Documents and Settings\username"

and then use junction from SysInternals for linking a home directory in the cygwin directory to Documents and Settings (otherwise the spaces will be annoying!!!)

C:>"\Program Files\Sysinternals\junction" c:\Cygwin\home "c:\Documents and Settings"

Setup SSH

$ mkdir .ssh

... write something ...