How do I launch an rxvt-unicode shell?

[Grok Mogger]

Brian Dessent wrote:
> Grok Mogger wrote:
> 
>> I recently installed rxvt-unicode.  That much was easy.  Could
>> someone please tell me how to launch a shell?
> 
> First of all, realize that the rxvt-unicode package is X11 only.  So you
> need to run the X server first before launching urxvt.  And also,
> despite its name, it does not support unicode, since Cygwin itself does
> not really support unicode.  The rationale for all of this is explained
> in the release announcements, e.g.
> <http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-announce/2006-05/msg00004.html>
> 
> Now, if you don't want X11 then you can use the plain old 'rxvt'
> package.  This one is dual-flavor: it uses windows native graphics (GDI)
> if no X server is running, or it does X11 if DISPLAY is set.  This can
> be adventageous if you don't want the bloat of X just for some consoles.
> 
> In general when launching any rxvt, you normally need to specify
> something with -e to execute.  If you don't, you get just plain bash,
> not even "bash --login", so your profile won't be read.  Most people
> want "bash --login --interactive" so you should specify that.
> 
> There are zillions of other options you can give to rxvt, just read the
> manpage.  You can also use ~/.Xdefaults to make these settings so that
> you don't have to specify them on the command line every time.  On the
> other hand, if you create a Windows shortcut to rxvt you can just stick
> them there and not worry about it.
> 
> An example of the kind of thing I personally use is:
> 
> rxvt -geometry 130x60 -bg black -fg gray -cr white -fn "Lucida
> Console-11" -sr -sl 5000 -j -cr white -tn rxvt -e bash -li
> 
> You might have to play with the various -tn settings.  Good choices
> would be rxvt-cygwin (for when using X11 flavor) and rxvt-cygwin-native
> (for when using W11/GDI flavor.)
> 
>> And just out of curiosity, what's the "best" shell option in
>> cygwin if I want my Linux shell on Windows?
> 
> You seem to be confusing the concepts of a terminal and a shell.  A
> terminal or console is the thing that displays characters, such as
> xterm, rxvt, etc.  A shell is the program that interprets commands
> interactively, e.g. bash, zsh, ksh, etc.  These are two totally
> unrelated things -- you can run shell scripts non-interactively with no
> terminal, and you can directly invoke binaries and view their output on
> a terminal without a shell.
> 
> Cygwin ships with bash as the default shell, same as Linux, so there's
> nothing different there.  The choices for terminal on Cygwin are
> approximately:
> 
> - native Windows console
> - rxvt, GDI
> - rxvt, X11
> - rxvtu, X11
> - xterm, X11 (or any other X11 terminal that you compile yourself,
> really)
> - third party native, e.g. <http://sourceforge.net/projects/console> or
> putty.  With putty there is also cygputty which is kind of a go-between
> that makes putty aware of Cygwin and eliminates some of the problems you
> have when using a native (non-Cygwin) program attached to a Cygwin tty.
> 
> Personally, I use rxvt GDI.
> 
> Brian
> 
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> 

Hey, thank you both for responding and taking the time to type 
all that.  It has helped a lot.

Brian: Yes, I was definitely confusing the concepts of a 
terminal and a shell.  Thank you for explaining that to me, I 
feel like I have a pretty good understanding of it now.

Thanks again guys,
- GM

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