C++ – Cygwin: “-bash: make: command not found”

Use the subprocess module in the standard library:

import subprocess
subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"])

The advantage of subprocess.run over os.system is that it is more flexible (you can get the stdout, stderr, the "real" status code, better error handling, etc...).

Even the documentation for os.system recommends using subprocess instead:

The subprocess module provides more powerful facilities for spawning new processes and retrieving their results; using that module is preferable to using this function. See the Replacing Older Functions with the subprocess Module section in the subprocess documentation for some helpful recipes.

On Python 3.4 and earlier, use subprocess.call instead of .run:

subprocess.call(["ls", "-l"])

For a default installation of Cygwin, PATH is set is /etc/profile. You can modify PATH so that /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin are appended rather than prepended.

# PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:${PATH}"
PATH="${PATH}:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin/"

Resulting in:

Setting environment for using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 x86 tools.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC>c:\cygwin\cygwin.bat

tim@xxx ~
$ printenv PATH
/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft F#/v4.0:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86
)/Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0/VSTSDB/Deploy:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Mic
rosoft Visual Studio 10.0/Common7/IDE:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft
Visual Studio 10.0/VC/BIN:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studi
o 10.0/Common7/Tools:/cygdrive/c/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v4.0.30319:/cyg
drive/c/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v3.5:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Mic
rosoft Visual Studio 10.0/VC/VCPackages:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/HTML Hel
p Workshop:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0/Team Too
ls/Performance Tools:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft SDKs/Windows/v7.0
A/bin/NETFX 4.0 Tools:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft SDKs/Windows/v7.
0A/bin:/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/Windows Live:/cyg
drive/c/Windows/system32:/cygdrive/c/Windows:/cygdrive/c/Windows/System32/Wbem:/
cygdrive/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x8
6)/Microsoft SQL Server/100/Tools/Binn:/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Microsoft SQL S
erver/100/Tools/Binn:/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Microsoft SQL Server/100/DTS/Binn
:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft ASP.NET/ASP.NET Web Pages/v1.0:/cygdr
ive/c/Program Files/TortoiseHg:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/GtkSharp/2.12/bin
:/cygdrive/c/Users/tim/AppData/Roaming/npm:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/nodej
s:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Common Files/Intuit/QBPOSSDKRuntime:/cygdrive/
c/Program Files (x86)/Git/cmd:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin/

tim@xxx ~
$ which link
/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0/VC/BIN/link