Before starting bash, you may set some environment variables. A .bat file is provided where the most important ones are set before bash in launched. This is the safest way to launch bash initially. The .bat file is installed in the root directory that you specified during setup and pointed to in the Start Menu under the "Cygwin" option. You can edit it this file your liking.
The CYGWIN
variable is used to configure many global
settings for the Cygwin runtime system. Initially you can leave
CYGWIN
unset or set it to tty
(e.g.
to support job control with ^Z etc...) using a syntax like this in the
DOS shell, before launching bash.
C:\>
set CYGWIN=tty notitle glob
The PATH
environment variable is used by Cygwin
applications as a list of directories to search for executable files
to run. This environment variable is converted from Windows format
(e.g. C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows
) to UNIX format
(e.g., /cygdrive/c/Windows/system32:/cygdrive/c/Windows
)
when a Cygwin process first starts.
Set it so that it contains at least the x:\cygwin\bin
directory where "x:\cygwin
is the "root" of your
cygwin installation if you wish to use cygwin tools outside of bash.
This is usually done by the batch file you're starting your shell with.
The HOME
environment variable is used by many programs to
determine the location of your home directory and we recommend that it be
defined. This environment variable is also converted from Windows format
when a Cygwin process first starts. It's usually set in the shell
profile scripts in the /etc directory.
The TERM
environment variable specifies your terminal
type. It is automatically set to cygwin
if you have
not set it to something else.
The LD_LIBRARY_PATH
environment variable is used by
the Cygwin function dlopen ()
as a list of
directories to search for .dll files to load. This environment variable
is converted from Windows format to UNIX format when a Cygwin process
first starts. Most Cygwin applications do not make use of the
dlopen ()
call and do not need this variable.