Installing MSYS (and setting up a Unix environment on Windows)

MSYS is a Unix Shell for Windows. It provides a minimal Unix environment, including a Unix-compatible C compiler, which allows us to produce an executable file on Windows from source code that can also be compiled on Mac OS X and Linux without requiring extensive modifications.

First, download MSYS-1.0.11-2004.04.30-1.exe.

Double-click to run MSYS-1.0.11-2004.04.30-1.exe, which installs MSYS.



Click Yes.



Click Next >.



If you agree with the license, click Yes.



Click Next >.



Choose where you want to install MSys. C:\msys is preferable. Click Next >.



Click Next >.



Choose where you want MSys to be located in the Start Menu. Click Next >.



Click Yes. After a while, you'll get:



Type 'n', and then press Enter.



Press Enter again.



Uncheck both boxes and click Finish.

Now download msys-1.0.dll-SNAP-1.0.11-2006.04.23.tar.bz2, which is a patch for an essential MSYS DLL.

Unpack "msys-1.0.dll-SNAP-1.0.11-2006.04.23.tar.bz2" to "C:\msys\". (You may need to get an appropriate utility able to unpack "*.bz2" files, such as "WinRAR".)

Open the folder "C:\msys\bin\" with Windows Explorer.

Delete the file "msys-1.0.dll". (You have a newer version, so it's ok to delete it).

Rename "new-msys-1.0.dll" to "msys-1.0.dll".

Now download bash-2.05b-MSYS.tar.bz2. This is an updated BASH shell for MSYS.

Unpack "bash-2.05b-MSYS.tar.bz2" to "C:\msys\".

Open the folder "C:\msys\bin\" with Windows Explorer.

Delete the file "sh.exe" (you'll replace it with "bash.exe", so it's ok to delete it).

Rename "bash.exe" to "sh.exe".

Installing wget

The next step is to install wget. wget is a Unix tool for downloading, updating, and installing tools in a Unix environment.

Open an MSYS window.

In your MSYS window, type "mkdir -p /usr/src". This creates a folder.

Then type "cd /usr/src". This changes you to that folder within MSYS.

Back out in Windows, download "wget-1.9.1-mingwPORT.tar.bz2", saving it in C:\msys\src, the folder you just created in MSYS.

Back in MSYS, type "tar jxf wget-1.9.1-mingwPORT.tar.bz2" to unpack the wget archive file.

Next, type "cd wget-1.9.1/mingwPORT" to change to the necessary directory for wget to function correctly.

Then type "mkdir -p /mingw/bin" to create a directory to hold the mingw compiler.

Next, type "cp -a wget.exe /mingw/bin/" to copy the wget program to the /mingw/bin folder you just created..

Now type "cd" to change back to your home directory.

You have now set up a suitable Unix-based environment on your computer.

The next step is to set up your MinGW environment.