This isn’t really appropriate for a blog entry, because it’s bound to be updated over and over, but I need a place to keep these notes.

Essential packages (not including pre-selected):

• xinit. Effectively what is called Cygwin/X. (Creates a new shortcut in the start menu called XWin Server that you probably should stick in your startup list.) With this you can run gvim, xterm etc.
• binutils (if you want strings)
• file
• git, gitk
• openssh
• ping
• python
• rsync
• vim, gvim
• wget, curl
• zip, unzip
• make/patch

Decent terminals:

• mintty
• puttycyg (ie. putty modded to use locally) You have to get this one separately, but it has a nicer feel to it imo.