Hi all,

So I was looking to find a way to replace Putty on my Windows desktop. What's wrong with Putty? Mainly that it doesn't support a multi-tabbed interface and it's pretty much not being developed anymore.

I also tried cygwin before and although SSH worked like a breeze I was still stuck with the default mintty terminal which .. well wasn't much great either.

Then I googled some and found this thread suggesting to use Console2 (aka as just "Console").

Then for some more guidance with Cygwin and Windows Paths I found this post which perfectly explained how to set up Cygwin.

So to be honest to all of the above authors, this post basically puts all the above together in a step by step with a little emphasis on the SSH part.

1. Start with following How-To Geek's guide on setting up Cygwin but make sure to also add the following packages:

Category "Net"

• openssh
• libssh2_1

Category "Editors" (Optional, but come on how will you survive without vim/nano ? :)

• vim
• nano

After you've finished the above steps and modified your Windows PATH to also include the %CYGWIN%bin directory you should be able to fire up all cygwin commands from anywhere.

2. Now download Console2 and unzip the contents to %CYGWIN%Console2

3. Fire up Console2 and do the following:

Click on 'Edit', 'Settings...' and under the "Console" category change your "Shell" to

C:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe

(Obviously replace the above with the full path of your Cygwin installation)

4. Under "Hotkeys", the most important ones to change are:

"New Tab 1" - Change it to Ctrl+T (or any other shortcut you like)

"Copy Selection" - Change it to Ctrl+C

"Paste" - Change it to Ctrl+V

5. Click on "Mouse" (Under "Hotkeys") and change the "Copy/clear selection" to "Left"

Now just click 'OK'

6. Create a shortcut to Console2

• Right-click anywhere on the desktop, click 'New'->'Shortcut'

• For the location use:

C:\cygwin\Console2\Console.exe

(Obviously replace the above with the full path of where you unzipped Console2 under)

• Click "Next"

• For the shortcut name use "Console2"

Done!

Now to connect to a server you should be able to simply use the familiar SSH command like this:

ssh root@192.168.2.16

Isn't it awesome?!?! :):)

Also you can edit the colors and fonts of Console2 to make it a little easier to the eye through:

"Edit"->"Settings..."->"Appearance"

Here's what my end result looks like: