Chapter 18: Using UNIX and Windows Together


Overview

The UNIX System gives you a rich working environment that includes multitasking, extensive networking capabilities, and a versatile shell with many tools. UNIX exists in many versions, called variants, that include distributions of Linux, Mac OS X, and BSD that run on desktop environments, and other distributions that run on workstations, minicomputers, and mainframes-such as Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX. But we live in a world in which millions of desktop PCs and servers run applications under Microsoft Windows, which itself has a few versions currently being used, such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, and even older versions on home PCs. To complicate things further, many environments exist in which UNIX computers and Windows computers are networked together. These realities make it crucial for many people to use Windows and UNIX together.

There could be many reasons to use both systems-for instance, if you use a UNIX system at work and run Windows on a PC at home or vice versa. You may want to take advantage of both UNIX and Windows applications by running them on the same machine. For example, maybe you wish to run UNIX versions of Windows software that are compatible with the original Windows versions. You may want to emulate your Windows environment on a computer running UNIX. On the other hand, maybe you wish to enrich your Windows environment with UNIX System facilities and tools, or you wish to run UNIX applications on a Windows machine. You may even want to run both Windows and UNIX on the same PC.

When you use both Windows machines and UNIX machines on the same network, you may want to share files between them. You may want to use your Windows PC as a terminal for logging in to a UNIX computer, and so on. So in a hybrid world of both UNIX and Windows machines, you may want to use Windows and UNIX together in a multitude of ways.

There are many aspects to using the UNIX System and Windows together. This chapter covers these issues and more:

  • Moving to UNIX if you are a Windows user, including understanding important similarities and differences between the two operating systems

  • Understanding the differences between how the graphical user interfaces execute tasks and how the command-line interfaces execute tasks

  • Understanding how to access a UNIX system using terminal emulation on your PC

  • Running Windows applications on UNIX machines, including Windows emulators

  • Sharing files and applications across UNIX and Windows machines

  • Running both UNIX and Windows on the same machine

  • Networking Windows PC clients with UNIX servers (covered also in Chapter 15)

  • Sharing hardware between UNIX and Windows machines




UNIX. The Complete Reference
UNIX: The Complete Reference, Second Edition (Complete Reference Series)
ISBN: 0072263369
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 316

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