Emacs on Windows: Install Linux Tools

By Xah Lee. Date: 2024-08-19.

Required Unix / Linux Commands for Emacs

Some of emacs's features require unix utilities.

if you don't need these features, you can ignore. else, you need to install it.

The essential ones are these:

cmd name	feature
`ispell`	needed for spell checking. e.g. `Alt`+`x` `ispell-word`, `flyspell-buffer` and others.
`diff`	needed to compare difference of text files. e.g. `Alt`+`x` `diff`
`grep`	needed for searching text in a dir. e.g. `Alt`+`x` `grep` and others.
`find`	needed for listing file names after search. e.g. `Alt`+`x` `find-dired`.

There are several ways to get linux tools for Microsoft Windows.

I recomment one of the following:

Install chocolatey package manager. This lets you install many unix command line tools easily. See Windows: Xah Windows Machine Setup
Install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
For old school, try Cygwin Installing Cygwin Tutorial

Alternatively, i recommend not rely on unix {find, grep, diff}, because they are 30 years old technology.

You can easily use PowerShell for unix find grep diff.