Re: #1782: Reduce number of Windows configurations by removing Cygwin support

[Chicken Trac]

#1782: Reduce number of Windows configurations by removing Cygwin support
-----------------------------------------+--------------------
            Reporter:  felix winkelmann  |      Owner:  (none)
                Type:  task              |     Status:  new
            Priority:  major             |  Milestone:  5.4
           Component:  build system      |    Version:  5.2.0
          Resolution:                    |   Keywords:
Estimated difficulty:  easy              |
-----------------------------------------+--------------------

Comment (by johnwcowan):

 There are a few reasons why WSL does not replace Cygwin, roughly in
 decreasing order of importance to me:

 1. Cygwin can be installed on almost any Windows system from Windows 7
 onwards on either 32-bit or 64-bit machines; WSL works only on 64-bit
 Windows 10 or 11.

 2. Cygwin can be installed with or without admin privilege; WSL requires
 privilege.  This is important if you want Chicken on a corporate machine,
 where you probably aren't going to have privilege.

 3. Cygwin's access to the filesystem is a few percent slower than native
 Windows.  In WSL1, the "Linux" part of the filesystem is less performant;
 in WSL2, the "Windows native" part of the filesystem is much less
 performant.

 4. Cygwin binaries can be shipped to any Windows user as long as
 cygwin1.dll goes along with them.  (This DLL used to be GPL but is now
 LGPL.)  WSL binaries are just Linux binaries, and require either Linux or
 WSL installed at the destination.

 5. WSL does not interoperate with VirtualBox, because they use
 incompatible hypervisor technology.  (MS is working on this, but it's a
 big deal.)

 6.  Cygwin applications have access to a subset of the Linux API, the
 WinNT supervisor API, and the Win32 or Win64 API.  WSL applications have
 access only to the Linux API.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://bugs.call-cc.org/ticket/1782#comment:2>
CHICKEN Scheme <https://www.call-cc.org/>
CHICKEN Scheme is a compiler for the Scheme programming language.