David Olofson: I depends. For hardcore unix programs, cygwin can in some situations be the only alternative. But msys/mingw has its advantages as well: *The msys terminal is a lot nicer than xterm *msys/mingw uses fewer resources than cygwin *mingw executables requires fewer dlls and are easier to distribute *mingw executables can be linked with non-cygwin dll's. disadvantages: *msys/mingw is messy to set up. Check out the FAQ first. *msys/mingw is very messy to upgrade. (manually unpacking .tar files into the file tree) *msys doesn't provide the same amount of unix tools. *mingw executables can not be linked with cygwin dll's. http://www.mingw.org/msys.shtml