try this : $ AUTOHEADER="autoheader`echo "$AUTOCONF" | sed 's/.*autoconf//'`" $ test -x $AUTOHEADER $ echo $? the result in cygwin is 1 but the result in fedora is 0 this is not enabling me to cross compile tvtime -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/