Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows.

Cygwin is a tool that allows you have Linux environment on windows.

It consists of a DLL (cygwin1.dll), which acts as an emulation layer providing substantial POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) system call functionality, and a collection of tools, which provide a Linux look and feel.

The Cygwin DLL works with all x86 versions of Windows since Windows 95.

It consists of two parts:
· A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality.
· A collection of tools, which provide Linux look and feel.

Cygwin is not a way to run native linux apps on Windows. You have to rebuild your application from source if you want to get it running on Windows.

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