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Cygwin allows Windows users to access certain Linux features and includes a large number of GNU and open source tools that are commonly found in popular Linux distributions.

When using Cygwin, it is easy to encounter a command not found error message; in our case, it was the make command not found. This error message appears when the make utility is not available in our terminal.

This article will discuss the method to deal with bash: make: command not found in Cygwin.

Solve bash: make: command not found in Cygwin by installing

The make utility allows us to build, maintain, and compile large programs or groups of programs and automatically determine which parts of a large program need to be recompiled and use certain parameters or arguments to recompile such programs.

The structure of a typical make command is as follows, and a makefile is usually used.

make [ -f makefile ] [ options ] ... [ targets ] ...

In the Cygwin terminal, we can use the make utility; however, depending on how we installed it, we may not be able to access it and may not find the make command.

To check if make is available in your Cygwin terminal, accessing make directly or through its debug mode will give you output or errors. If it gives you make command not found errors, then it does not exist.

So if you use the make command with other parameters, you should see an error message similar to the one above. Now that we have determined that this is because the make utility or package does not exist, the goal is to install it.

Using the Cygwin installation file setup-x86_64.exe, which you use to install the terminal in a package, we can update our existing installation by selecting a package.

You can update an existing installation using the make utility in a Cygwin terminal by following the steps below.

1. Go to your setup-x86_64.exe and start the installation just like you did when you first installed Cygwin. If you happened to delete that file, you can go to the Cygwin installation section and download the installation file (about 1.3 MB).

   

2. Select the same download source and root installation directory as last time to prevent any problems. Also, the installation conditions must be identical to prevent two Cygwin terminal instances from appearing.

   

   

3. Select the same Local Package Directory as last time, but if you don't remember, leave it as recommended.

   

4. Select your internet connection and then the download site; the first one is the most preferred.

   

   

5. Change the View tab to Full, search for make in the search field, and scroll to find make in the list of packages (highlighted). Remember to double-click the Skip value to see the version.

   Additionally, you can select make-debuginfo to allow easy debug mode. Select Next.

   

6. Check the Review and Confirm Changes screen to ensure installation.

   

7. You should have a download progress like the image below.

   

8. The update installation is complete and we can now use the make utility through the Cygwin terminal.

   

Now, let's use the make command to see if we get the same error. If we use the make command, it will give us a make error telling us that the target was not specified and the makefile was not found.

This shows that we have delivered.

Now, let's check the version (a final check to make sure make is available to you) using the following command.

make -v

Output:

GNU Make 4.3
Built for x86_64-pc-cygwin
Copyright (C) 1988-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Solve bash: make: command not found in Cygwin with apt-cyg

If you have apt-cyg, the package manager utility that allows you to keep track of installed packages on Cygwin, then you can easily solve the problem of the make command not being easily found.

Using apt-cyg, you can install, remove, download, and retrieve packages, among other operations. Here, we will install make using apt-cyg using the following command.

apt-cyg install make

When we use the above command in Cygwin, it should produce the following result.

Now, let's check that the operation was successful by checking the version of make.

make -v

Assuming you don't have apt-cyg, this is a great tool on Cygwin that allows you to install, update, or remove packages without having to repeat the installation process as in the previous section.

In this case, you will need to do an update installation using the Cygwin installation file, just one more time. After the last time, you will not need the file again.

After starting the update installation process, once you reach the "Select Packages" screen, search for lynx and install it. Then, open your Cygwin terminal and enter the following commands one after the other.

lynx -source rawgit.com/transcode-open/apt-cyg/master/apt-cyg > apt-cyg
install apt-cyg /bin

The last command installs apt-cyg, which will now be used to install any additional packages or utilities that are not present in your existing installation.

You can check if the apt-cyg installation is complete using the apt-cyg -v command. Also, with a simple command, you can download any package or utility.

apt-cgy install utility-name