Differences between Windows shell and Cygwin shell?

[Nicolas Neuss <neuss at math dot fau dot de>]

Hello,

I want to use the IBM Data Explorer OpenDX (http://opendx.org/), which
is a rather powerful scientific visualization program (although it looks
as if it might have been abondoned).  More precisely, I am interested in
it because it provides the standard graphical backend for my FEM solver
"Femlisp".

On Linux and MacOSX, OpenDX works without problems (or better, in an
acceptable way for me:-), and is also easily installable via the package
managers.  On Windows, however, I observe differences depending on the
shell from which the program is started.

More precisely, when I simply start the program in interactive mode
using the command "dx", it works both when started from the Windows
shell and the Cygwin shell.  (Of course, since dx is an X application,
the Cygwin X server has to run in the background.)

However, differences occur when I try starting dx in "script mode"
(which should result in a command line interface if no filename is
provided).

Using the Windows cmd shell, it works as expected and stops at its
prompt ("dx>"):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
C:\Users\Nicolas Neuss>dx -script
Starting DX executive
Open Visualization Data Explorer
More Info at www.research.ibm.com/dx
and www.opendx.org
Version - 4.4.4
Memory cache will use 1112 MB (68 for small items, 1044 for large)

 0:  worker here [4672] 
dx> 
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Whereas, if I start it from the Cygwin shell, I get

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$dx -script
Open Visualization Data Explorer
More Info at www.research.ibm.com/dx
and www.opendx.org
Version - 4.4.4
Memory cache will use 1112 MB (68 for small items, 1044 for large)

 0:  worker here [4888] 
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Note that the line "Starting DX executive" is missing in the second
case, and that the program hangs without reaching the prompt "dx>".
(When I try stopping it with ctrl-c, the whole Cygwin shell hangs.)

Does anyone have an idea what could be the reason for this difference?

Thank you,

Nicolas

P.S.: I do not use Windows regularly.  Only recently, someone was
interested in getting Femlisp working on Windows, so I looked at it.

P.S.2: Of course, asking on an OpenDX mailing list would probably be a
better thing than bothering you here.  But I did not find any such list,
it looks as if OpenDX really has been given up.

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