babun - the best Unix shell for Windows

 

Sometimes the best way to use a computer is via its command line. This is particularly true for developers, there are times when even the best IDE wont' do. And its then that you realize that the best command line shell is the one on Unix. Window's command support is weak and an afterthought. In the on-premise model of enterprise software development, most companies use Unix or its variant for the production systems, due its much better stability, but also lower cost. There is nothing like grepping through entire log files to find culprit code in the system. cleartext.blogspot.com

The Unix/Linux shell has over 160 commands, and different distributions can have extra packages. This gives a developer on Unix limitless power on the commandline, using simple chaining, it is possible to solve the problem at hand without having to download any extra program. But things are bleak on the Windows front, where all you can do is dir and findstr. Sure the bat files have some more power, but there are still a lot missing.  I wondered if there was a way to get a working Unix like shell on the Windows system which can access the Windows filesystem but still do its magic. cleartext.blogspot.com

And I stumbled upon babun. If you are a developer like me, babun is the only shell you will need on Windows. It is a simple installable exe shell which accepts all unix commands, and then runs them on Windows. You don't have to set it up like cygwin. It does not even need administrator rights to install, and installs silently. After installation it creates a simple shortcut on the desktop, and runs a full xterm color interface.

And the shell understands  every standard Unix command, the usual grep, sort, wc,head , tail are all supported along with pipes. It periodically on startup, checks for updates. cleartext.blogspot.com

Installation of software on Unix is the biggest roadblock even today, and babun makes it easy to install anything easily. The installer is called pact.

But the best part is that it can access your native Windows disks, so you get the best of both worlds. cleartext.blogspot.com

So now you can have all your Unix power in Windows ! cleartext.blogspot.com

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