We all love to have quite a bit of flexibility with the machines we work on. One such thing I love is to have access to both Windows and Linux on the same system. By this, I do not necessarily mean having both operating systems running on the machine. To experience the charm of Windows on Linux, we may use Wine and similarly, to experience the charm of Linux on Windows we may use a program like Cygwin.

In this article, I will guide you on how to use Linux commands from your Windows command prompt to make you have much more flexibility.

First Things First

In order to make this happen, you need to download and install an interface like Cygwin on your machine. During installation, you will be prompted to enter the root folder. Be careful with your choice, as this becomes your root folder with the Cygwin interface.Before we proceed to the command prompt, you may launch Cygwin and get a feel for it. The interface is shown below.

STEP BY STEP:-- 

(download Cygwin )

1. click on install.

2. then install from internet.

3. click on next.

4.  Click on direct connection.

5. Choose any one of them. and click next..

6. Then click on first. unless instal word dont appear.

7. then wait for some time software automaticaly download and install....... after that completion you can enjoy linux .......... :-)

Integrate Cygwin to the Cmd Prompt

In order to make the command prompt understand Linux commands, we need to port Cygwin to cmd prompt. Navigate to the Cygwin root folder that you had selected during its installation. Go to bin folder and copy the location.

Next, open your System Properties dialog box. Go to My Computer, right click and Properties. Go to the advanced tab and find the Environment variables button under it. Hit this button to find a new dialog box appear. This is where you need to configure Cygwin for the command prompt.Select New to create a new environment variable. Give it a name as “CYGWIN” and value as the bin path for the Cygwin root location.After this, select the variable named “Path” and click Edit. Navigate to the end of the variable value and add a new variable as %CYGWIN% after putting a semi colon (;).You are now done and ready to use your command prompt with all the Linux commands.

Look into the Command Prompt

Launch your command prompt and try doing “Path”. You should see something like the image below with the addition of the Cygwin path. If not, something went wrong, and you need to check if you accomplished all steps properly.If all is fine, you will be able to use Linux commands. Try a few simple one’s out and later you may use it to the full extent. I tried commands like ls -l, cat, pwd and chmod. All seemed to work fine.

Conclusion

This is an awesome and interesting way to make Linux commands available on Windows. If you are a programmer or like to work with Linux, you will definitely love it. Not only does it bring a new set of commands but also increases the features of your cmd prompt. Moreover, it is better than just using the Cygwin interface alone.

Of personal computers run Windows with versions including Windows 3.x, 95.x, NT, 2000 and XP. Windows versions 3.x and earlier were actually operating environments - graphical interfaces that ran on topWell, Linux commonly pronounced IPA: /lnks/ in English; variants exist is a Unix-like computer operating system. Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free software and open source...


The purpose of an operating system is to:
1. control all the hardware components that are part of your computer.
2. manage a computer's ability to do several things at once
3. provide a base set of services to programs to keep software manufacturers from have to reinvent the wheel a million times for the same thing.

1) Linux is a open-source OS.People can change code and add programs which will help to use your computer better. It's designed as a reaction on the monopoly position of windows. you can't change any thing in windows. you can't even see which processes do what and build your onw extension. Linux wants the programmers to extend and redesign it's OS time after time, so it beats Windows or at least is as good as windows, but whit open-source, so you can see what happens and you can edit the OS.

2) All the flavors of Windows come from Microsoft, the various distributions of Linux come from different companies (i.e LIndows , Lycoris, Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, Knopping, Slackware)..

3) Linux is customizable in a way that Windows is not. For example,NASlite is a version of Linux that runs off a single floppy disk and converts an old computer into a file server. This ultra small edition of Linux is capable of networking, file sharing and being a web server..

4) For desktop or home use, Linux is very cheap or free, Windows is expensive. For server use, Linux is very cheap compared to Windows. Microsoft allows a single copy of Windows to be used on only one computer. Starting with Windows XP, they use software to enforce this rule (activation). In contrast, once you have purchased Linux, you can run it on any number of computers for no additional charge. .

5) You have to log on to Linux with a userid and password. This is not true of Windows. Typically Windows 9x does not ask for a userid/password at boot time and, even if it does, this can be easily bypassed. In general, Windows NT, 2000 and XP do require a userid/password to log on. However Windows 2000 and XP can be configured with a default userid and password so they boot directly to the Windows desktop. Windows XP, 2000 and Linux all support different types of users. Windows XP Home Edition supports Administrator class users that have full and total access to the system and restricted users that, among other restrictions, can't install software. Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000 support additional levels of users and there are groups of system privileges that can be assigned to a particular user. In Linux, the user with full and total access is called root, everyone else is a normal user. The options for Linux security privileges don't seem to me to be as robust as in Windows 2000 and XP Pro, they are focused on files and directories (can you read, update and execute files). Linux has a concept of a group of users that Windows does not, but again the privileges associated with a group are all file/directory related. ..

6) Linux has a reputation for fewer bugs than Windows ..

7) Windows must boot from a primary partition. Linux can boot from either a primary partition or a logical partition inside an extended partition. Windows must boot from the first hard disk. Linux can boot from any hard disk in the computer. 8) Windows uses a hidden file for its swap file. Typically this file resides in the same partition as the OS (advanced users can opt to put the file in another partition). Linux uses a dedicated partition for its swap file (advanced users can opt to implement the swap file as a file in the same partition as the OS).