MSYS2 A Cygwin-derived software distribution for Windows using Arch Linux's Pacman. It is an independent rewrite of MSYS, based upon modern Cygwin (POSIX compatibility layer) and MinGW-w64 with the aim of better interoperability with native Windows software.

The name is a contraction of Minimal SYStem 2, and aims to provide support to facilitate using the bash shell, Autotools, revision control systems and the like, for building native Windows applications using MinGW-w64 toolchains.

Key features include:

• MSYS2 Cygwin fork.
• Port of Arch Linux's Pacman.
• Hundreds of FOSS packages.

MSYS2 functions as a useful package management system that provides easy installation of packages, with ported Arch Linux's Pacman. It has numerous powerful features such as dependency resolution and simple complete system upgrades, as well as providing the build system - makepkg{,-mingw} - which is used to make these packages.