Windows and Linux

Windows and Linux

As you probably know, MS-DOS used to be and Microsoft Windows (in its various versions from Windows 95/98 to Windows XP) continues to be the most popular operating system for 80386, 80486, and Pentium PCs. Because Linux started on 80386/80486 PCs, a connection between DOS/Windows and Linux has always existed. Typically, you start the Linux installation with some steps in DOS.

Linux has maintained its connection to DOS/Windows in several ways:

• Linux supports the older MS-DOS file system called FAT (file allocation table), as well as the newer Windows VFAT (long filenames) and FAT32 file systems. From Linux, you can access MS-DOS and Windows files on a hard disk or a floppy disk.

• Linux supports read-only access to NTFS file system that is used in Windows NT/2000/XP. You can build (or download) and load a driver module to incorporate the NTFS support.

• Linux features a set of tools (called mtools) that manipulates DOS/Windows files from within Linux.

An ongoing project called WINE is developing a free implementation of Windows for the X Window System under UNIX (see http://www.winehq.com/). WINE enables you to run Windows 3.1/95/NT programs. WINE works on some versions of UNIX for the Intel x86 systems, including Linux and FreeBSD.