Help me install FontForge under Windows XP

Factual Questions
1

I’m trying to install FontForge, a free font creation application. It normally runs under Linux, but you can apparently install it using CYGWIN; an environment running under Windows (XP in my case).

I’m following this tutorial:

http://www.crystalxp.net/forum/en/Windows-Customization-Support/Tutorials/sujet_37176_1.htm

Now I’ve installed CYGWIN and have a directory structure:

C:\cygwin\home\darryl

I created the darryl subdirectory myself, even though the tutorial somehow claims that a user directory should be created automatically.

In any case, I’ve copied fontforge_cygwin-20080607.tar.bz2 to C:\cygwin\home\darryl

I tried doing a complete CYGWIN installation, but after running all night long and getting 99% complete, there was some kind of error.

So, I’m trying to just do the installation suggested by the tutorial:

What is meant by:

  • the standard components
  • the X windows system, binutils, lbng et libxm12

When I run Cygwin Setup I get a window which looks like:

Using the Search box, I can only find binutils, and none of that other crap ( xorg-x11-base for example ).

Is this tutorial out of date, am I missing something, or am I just an idiot?

2

OK, I’ve found another site with a much better implementation. Apparently that first site is out of date. This is the better one:

http://www.useragentman.com/blog/2011/02/27/installing-cygwin-and-fontforge-for-windows/

Nevertheless, it still hangs somewhere in the middle of the installation, apparently on the same file in the same spot. I’ll try a different couple of mirrors and see what happens.

3

I’d consider trying andLinux instead of Cygwin. From there you can use Synaptic to install fontforge from the Ubuntu repository.

I have never successfully gotten a graphical program to work with cygwin.

4

Thanks, maybe I’ll give that a go. I keep bogging down while trying to download Font Forge. I’m pretty much an idiot when it comes to Linux, so maybe I’ll learn something.