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Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:00:23 -0800
From: Brian Dessent <brian AT dessent DOT net>
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Subject: Re: what's the difference between /dev/tty1 and /dev/console
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Yue Chen wrote:

> I have two hosts installed with cygwin. When I click the cygwin icon
> on host1, the prompt CLI window's tty is /dev/console. However, when I
> click the icon on host2, the CLI window's tty turns to be /dev/tty1.
> In the first window, all windows applications run very well. But in
> the /dev/tty1 window, some windows application can not run
> successfully. Does any one know why?

/dev/console means that the session is running in a real Windows
console.

/dev/tty1 means that the session is running attached to a pty
(pseudoterminal) which is emuated by Cygwin.

Since ptys are an emulated concept that don't exist in Windows,
non-Cygwin programs get confused by them because they think their output
is a pipe and not an interactive session.

If you use any terminal but the stock Windows console (i.e. rxvt, xterm,
ssh connection) or you have "tty" in your CYGWIN environment variable
you always get  a pty.  The only time you get a console is when you
don't have "tty" set and you invoke bash from a real Windows console.

Brian

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