Though Cygwin provides the ability to update and install packages via the use of the Cygwin`s setup.exe command, the command line installer apt-cyg provides apt-get like syntax whilst still using Cygwin's native package repository.

Below details the steps required to install the apt-cyg command line installer.

1. UPDATE CYGWIN

First of all you will need to ensure that Cygwin has the necessary binaries required for apt-cyg. This is achieved via the use of the Cygwin setup executable via the Windows command prompt.

C:\Windows\System32>C:\Users\admin\Downloads\setup.exe -q -P  wget,tar,qawk,bzip2,subversion,vim

2. INSTALL APT-CYG

Next download and install apt-cyg from within Cygwin.

$ svn --force export http://apt-cyg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ /bin/
$ chmod +x /bin/apt-cyg

3. SYNTAX

4. EXAMPLE

$ apt-cyg install rsync
Working directory is /setup
Mirror is ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/cygwin
--2011-05-09 06:44:24-- ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/cygwin/setup.bz2
=> `.listing'
Resolving mirror.mcs.anl.gov (mirror.mcs.anl.gov)... 2620:0:dc0:1800:214:4fff:fe7d:1b9, 146.137.96.15, 146.137.96.7
Connecting to mirror.mcs.anl.gov (mirror.mcs.anl.gov)|2620:0:dc0:1800:214:4fff:fe7d:1b9|:21... failed: Connection timed out.
Connecting to mirror.mcs.anl.gov (mirror.mcs.anl.gov)|146.137.96.15|:21... connected.

!! Output Omitted !!

2011-05-09 06:45:16 (131 KB/s) - `rsync-3.0.8-1.tar.bz2' saved [272248]

Unpacking...
Package rsync requires the following packages, installing:
libgcc1 libiconv2 libpopt0 cygwin
Package libgcc1 is already installed, skipping
Package libiconv2 is already installed, skipping
Package libpopt0 is already installed, skipping
Package cygwin is already installed, skipping
Package rsync installed

5. REFERENCES

http://code.google.com/p/apt-cyg/
http://software.jessies.org/salma-hayek/cygwin-setup.html