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I installed the latest version of Cygwin with a number of packages. I soon realised that I need more packages (such as wget, etc) and I couldn't find a way to install the new packages without running the set up again and reinstall everything from scratch.

What I'm looking for is the equivalent of apt-get on Cygwin (if such a thing exists).

Kazark
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Mulone
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9 Answers9

164

There is no package management in Cygwin outside of the setup program. The setup only applies updates to your current installation, it does not overwrite packages that what you already have (unless you have explicitly said so).

So rerun the setup program to install new packages.

Community
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Benoit Miller
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There is a package called apt-cyg that may be what you are looking for. It appears to be based upon apt-get.

apt-cyg is a command-line installer for Cygwin which cooperates with Cygwin Setup and uses the same repository. The syntax is similar to apt-get.

An example command would be 

$ apt-cyg install yourPackage

To install it you need wget, tar, gawk, and bzip2. You can download all these packages from the Cygwin packages list.

random
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Chesh
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I find Chocolatey very useful for windows installations management (new, upgrade and removal), and cygwin is no exception!

I installed cygwin using Chocolatey, and since Chocolatey is installing using quiet/silent mode, you are not asked to select any packages and cygwin is installed with bare minimum packages :-(.

However, every time you wish to install a new package it is really-really, easy just use:
--source=cygwin. For example, installing bash:

choco install bash --source=cygwin

Tal Tikotzki
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Re-run the setup program again. This is how you update Cygwin as well.

Kevin Panko
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Buggabill
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You need to install 'lynx' at first in a common way. Then open cygwin and write this:

  1. lynx -source rawgit.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg/master/apt-cyg > apt-cyg

  2. install apt-cyg /bin

Now you can use package manager apt-cyg install

For more information see https://github.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg

Wtower
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Alex
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I was stuck with the same issue while trying to use curl on Windows and just got it resolved. Posting it here, now cause it might help someone.

The best way is to just use cygwin's setup.exe and select additional packages that you need. Go here: http://www.cygwin.com/install.html

"When installing packages for the first time, setup*.exe does not install every package. Only the minimal base packages from the Cygwin distribution are installed by default. Clicking on categories and packages in the setup*.exe package installation screen will provide you with the ability to control what is installed or updated."

Nitin Nain
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Hi I know that it's old topic but just to add some info: You can also install program called MSYS2 which has the package manager PACMAN from Arch Linux and You are able to install all packs avaible for Arch :) Just pacman -S packageName and hit enter and it will dl it for You:)

Cheers :D

Horacy Pigula
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You can use Babun which is built around Cygwin and includes the package manager pact.

Babun supports installing new packages out of the box:

pact install wget
Matthias Braun
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For Windows users, Use the Installation Setup, You can get the setup here https://www.cygwin.com/ It will guide you through the relevant steps until you reac the package window. Make sure you select Full in the View drop down . Then select the packages you want to add and install Check this image

kimoduor
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