# Re: ruby/gnuplot on windows

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-gnuplot-on-windows/95020>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 19, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-gnuplot-on-windows/95020 "2006-05-19T14:59:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-gnuplot-on-windows/95020/1 "2006-05-19T14:59:49Z")

</div>

> So from this link, I entered in the cygwin shell:

> startx

> and an x-shell opened. From here I can run

> gnuplot -persist test.plt

> and it works. Is this how you are doing it? Is there a way to have ‘x’  
> active but working within the cygwin shell? The next step (which got us  
> started on this whole process) would be to try to run a ruby/gnuplot  
> program. Will being in the x shell complicate this?

> jon

well startx is a command that , in Linux, gives you access to a  
graphical  
interface (so people live happily with a command line, for most of their  
lives).  
I am not exactly an expert on Cygwin settings, so I just responded to  
your  
original email, after having tried the commands I wrote on my Cygwin  
installation.  
Maybe this is a DISPLAY variable setting thing which was done  
automatically  
in my setup but not in yours… But when you’ve got it startx working,  
you’re in Cygwin and perfectly all right. You can go on from there.  
From what you’ve written, Cygwin runs ok (using startx), you can start  
Gnuplot  
and Ruby individually.  
So now, the only things you must make sure now is to conform to both  
Ruby and Gnuplot syntax :-).  
Best regards,

Axel

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 7:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-gnuplot-on-windows/95020/2 "2006-05-19T19:13:10Z")

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> well startx is a command that , in Linux, gives you access to a  
> graphical  
> interface (so people live happily with a command line, for most of their  
> lives).  
> I am not exactly an expert on Cygwin settings, so I just responded to  
> your  
> original email, after having tried the commands I wrote on my Cygwin  
> installation.  
> Maybe this is a DISPLAY variable setting thing which was done  
> automatically  
> in my setup but not in yours… But when you’ve got it startx working,  
> you’re in Cygwin and perfectly all right. You can go on from there.  
> From what you’ve written, Cygwin runs ok (using startx), you can start  
> Gnuplot  
> and Ruby individually.  
> So now, the only things you must make sure now is to conform to both  
> Ruby and Gnuplot syntax :-).  
> Best regards,
> 
> Axel

Ok, I can live with that. I’ll give the ruby/gnuplot a try and let you  
know how it goes. Thanks.

jon

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-gnuplot-on-windows/95020/3 "2006-05-19T19:38:46Z")

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> Ok, I can live with that. I’ll give the ruby/gnuplot a try and let you  
> know how it goes. Thanks.
> 
> jon

ruby/gnuplot program.rb works through cygwin/x. As one last question,  
can you recommend a good text editor? I was using the one distributed  
with ruby but I can’t seem to find it with the cygwin installation.

jon