KDE on Cygwin
Encyclopedia
KDE on Cygwin is the port of the Qt toolkit
and the KDE
desktop environment
(both of which are commonly found in Linux
) to the Windows Operating System
by using Cygwin
, a POSIX
emulation
layer.
KDE on Cygwin helps Windows computers to run applications originally created for Qt and KDE, by providing the applications with the necessary dependencies in a transparent manner.
The project is no longer being developed as since 2009 there exists a natively-compiled version of KDE 4 for Windows.
After cessation of active development of KDE on Cygwin, the efforts to provide the KDE environment on Windows continue with the KDE Windows Initiative.
The project has ported various Qt and KDE versions, and are considered of beta quality.
Qt (toolkit)
Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers...
and the KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
desktop environment
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
(both of which are commonly found in Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
) to the Windows Operating System
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
by using Cygwin
Cygwin
Cygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment...
, a POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
emulation
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
layer.
KDE on Cygwin helps Windows computers to run applications originally created for Qt and KDE, by providing the applications with the necessary dependencies in a transparent manner.
The project is no longer being developed as since 2009 there exists a natively-compiled version of KDE 4 for Windows.
History
The project was started by Ralf Habacker in May 2001. Its goal was to ensure compatibility of major programs that were originally only available by using a Linux distribution.After cessation of active development of KDE on Cygwin, the efforts to provide the KDE environment on Windows continue with the KDE Windows Initiative.
Ported Software
As with many emulation examples, not all the common KDE programs are guaranteed to work unmodified on KDE on Cygwin due to the complex interaction of all the libraries needed. The open-source nature of KDE and several of the programs running on it, allows some of these shortcomings to be found and circumvented.The project has ported various Qt and KDE versions, and are considered of beta quality.