Is Cygwin/X worth learning.

[btiffin]

I didn't think this really fit in with a Poll, so I thought I just ask for any opinions.

I've been away from home for half a year now, and I finally got a machine with some guts. I've been running an old Pentium II with Win98 and I installed Cygwin (it wasn't my machine so GRUBbing on Debian didn't seem like a reasonable request). Well, I went and picked up a new refurb yesterday and XP/Pro gets half and Debian gets the other half of the HD. I was wondering if anyone here has experience with Cygwin/X? There are times when work needs to be done using Windows, and I need the POSIX layer to feel comfortable, but on this box, I was wondering about going whole hog and plopping on the Xserver. Good idea? It's only for comfort, as when I need a better OS I'll just boot Etch, but I'm curious if the Cygwin/X layer is stable enough for productive work and not just a toy re Windows development.

I'll accept hard fact and experience as well as opinions and heresay. Thanks muchly and as always;

Cheers.

[md]

I've run cygwin/X on windows and it worked great - even got gnome installed as my DE.

The problem is that for anything other then the command line cygwin is hit-or-miss with precompiled packages, and most DEs/GUI tools are farily complicated to build on your own.

I'd give it a shot - it may have improved tremendously in the 4 years since I've used it - but don't expect miracles.

[btiffin]

Thanks md; I haven't run a xserver on Windows for 10 years or so, and back then it was nuttin' but crash, swear, kak, bsod, swear some more.

I'll take your review as worthy of giving Cygwin/X a go.

Cheers