SUA Community hosted by Interop Systems

Welcome to our SUA / SFU / Interix Community

For the past six years Microsoft has sponsored the 15,000 member SUA Community forum hosted by Interop Systems. Interop has ported hundreds of additional open source tools to the SUA (and SFU / Interix) environment -- such that users now have a complete Unix/Linux environment available to them at no cost. In addition, Interop Systems was responsible (under contract from Microsoft) for updating the GNU and BSD utilities that are provided by Microsoft. Updates to the Microsoft set of utilities are maintained and posted in the SUA Community alongside Interop's set of open source tools.

Enter SUA Community Forum

SUA Add-on Bundles from Interop Systems

Interop Systems has its tools and utilities available for individual download from the SUA Community Tool Warehouse. We now offer specialized bundles where the installer handles all package integration, environment variables and dependencies for you. For best results, review these procedures to install SUA and the Utilities and SDK from Microsoft.

Setting up a Unix/Linux environment on Windows using SUA and the supplementary tools from Interop Systems

Step 1: Turning on the SUA features

The Subsystem for Unix-based Applications (SUA) is part of the Windows OS distribution, so installing the subsystem requires no additional CD or download. It's a component/feature of the base distribution of Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 R2, and windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise. All you need to do is turn the feature on.
From the Control Panel, select Programs and Features, then select Turn Windows Features On or Off. Simply check the box for "Subsystem for Unix-based Applications."

Step 2: Installing the Utilities and SDK for Unix-based Applications

Once the SUA "feature" is turned on, the next step is to download the Utilities and SDK. From the Start menu, under All Programs then under Subsystem for Unix-based Applications you can find the link to download the Utilities and SDK from the Microsoft website. Alternatively, you can visit the download site directly: Installing and Using Utilities and SDK for Unix-based Applications. This page is important as it outlines the difference between a standard (default) installation and a custom install.
Note: A common pitfall is to just accept the default installation. The default install does not include the GNU utilities and GNU SDK.
Interop Systems has prepared a Tech Note covering the installation of SUA, the utilities and SDK, and changing security settings to ensure Unix-like behavior. See http://www.interopsystems.com/Download/Installing_SUA.pdf.

Step 3: Installing the add-on tools available from Interop Systems

Select the pre-packaged bundle option best suited to your needs:

Power User

Install SUA and the Microsoft utilities package first,
including the GNU utilities

Download for SUA

(116 MB)

Download for SFU 3.5
(Also use this for WS2003 R2)

The Power User bundle includes the most requested open source commands, utilities and libraries from the SUA Community Tool Warehouse, such as:
bash, OpenSSH, OpenSSL and Xming (Xserver).

For a complete list of what's included in the Power User bundle, see the description below.

Developer

Install SUA and the Microsoft utilities & SDK package first,
including the GNU utilities & SDK

Download for SUA

(189 MB)

Download for SFU 3.5
(Also use this for WS2003 R2)

The Developer bundle contains the Power User toolset plus additional developer utilities and libraries -- resulting in a complete GNU toolchain (gcc, gmake, binutils,
gdb, autoconf, automake, autoheader and libtool)..

For a complete list of what's included in the Developer bundle, see the description below.

System Administrator

Install SUA and the Microsoft utilities & SDK package first,
including the GNU utilities & SDK

Download for SUA

(133 MB)

Download for SFU 3.5
(Also use this for WS2003 R2)

The System Administrator bundle contains the Power User toolset plus additional sys admin commands and utilities.

For a complete list of what's included in the System Administrator bundle, see the description below.

Complete Toolset

Install SUA and the Microsoft utilities & SDK package first,
including the GNU utilities & SDK

Download for SUA

(193 MB)

Download for SFU 3.5
(Also use this for WS2003 R2)

The Complete Toolset combines all three bundles. If you have a good Internet connection and the disk space, we suggest you choose
this option.

For a complete list of what's included in the Power User bundle, see the description below.

Power User Bundle

apropos, arc, atk, awk, bash, bdes, biff, bzip2, cabextract, caesar, cat, chcase, chmod, cmp, colrm, cp, cpio, curl, cut, cxref, date, dialog, diffutils, echo, ed, env, etc_profile_patch, expect, fetchmail, find, fontconfig, fortune, from, ftp, fvwm, getname, getopt, gettext, ghostscript, glib, gnupg, gnuplot, grep, groff, groups, gzip, jot, jove, jpeg, lam, lc, leave, libart, libcrypt, libexpat, libfreetype, libiconv, libncurses, libpng, libxml2, libxpm, links, locate, ls, lsreg, lynx, man, mc, md5, mesg, mkstr, mktemp, most, mtree, mutt, mv, ncftp, netpbm, openssh, openssl, pango, passwd, pax, pdomain, perl, pine, pkg, pkgconfig, popclient, python, rcp, readline, realpath, render, rev, rman, rs, rsh, rxvt, screen, scsh, shed, sort, stat, su, syslogd, tcl, tcsh, test, tiff, tk, tkman, transfig, trek, uid2sid, units, unrtf, unzip, vacation, vim, wall, wget, whatis, which, whois, winpath2unix, write, xargs, xfig, xft, xgalaga, xming, xmlstarlet, xrender, xstr, xterm, xtetris, xview, yafc, yes, zip, zlib, zsh

Developer Bundle

Power User Bundle plus:
autoconf, automake, awk, bind, bison, bzip2, c89, catman, cbrowser, ccache, cscope, cvs, ddd, electricfence, emacs, flex, freetds, gcc_3.3_patch, gd, gdbm, giflib, gimpprint, gmake, gmp, gnupg, gsoap, indent, install, jam, joe, libdes, libedit, libport, libtool, libungif, libxslt, logger, lorder, lzo, m4_gnu, make, mdk, nedit, openssl_dev, pango, patch_stdlib_h, patch_unistd_h, pcre, php, plotutils, popclient, qt, rsync, ruby, slang, subversion, texinfo, vtcl, xxgdb, yacc

Administrator Bundle

Power User Bundle plus:
admin_scripts, bind, catman, clamav, comsat, gcc_3.3_patch, install, iss, logger, lorder, make, myconsole, openssl_certs, php, procmail, qpopper, rdate, rsync, ruby, squid, sudo, tcp_wrappers, tftpd, unixpath2win, uucp