two newbie questions?

[mainebound]

Hi all!

I have been worink with MS Windows for many years now, but I happen to be a command-line fan. I want to use an OS in which I can do everything with command-line. WOuld Linux be my right choice?
Another question: what would be the difference betweem installing Linux on my PC and installing cgwin?

Thank you very much,

Mainebound

[Nerderello]

yes, you can run Linux as a command line OS. During installation you tell it that you do not want a graphical interface (called X). But be warned. Most of the latest Linux software is designed to be run using X and probably a windows manager such as Gnome or KDE.

You can, just like in windows, have a terminal window (s) in X to give you the command line and you can edit all of the config files this way. You can also press Ctrl Alt F1 to give you a MSDOS style screen (Ctrl Alt F7 gets you back to X).

Bottom line, there are standalone (ie they run off a CDROM and you do NOT have to install them) Linux distributions that you can try to see if you like Linux.

have fun
Nerderello

[mainebound]

Thank you so much!

What would be the difference between installing Linux on my PC and installing cgwin?

Mainebound

[kriss]

Cygwin is a DLL which provides a Unix emulation environment for Windows. The Cygwin environment provides a complete port of such development utilities as gcc, binutils, gdb, make, etc., as well as a number of useful utilities.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/cygwin

[mainebound]

Thank you, but I still don't clearly see the difference between cygwin and Linux on a Pc.

[kriss]

From what I understand, Cygwin enables you to run kde/gnome and such on windows.

Take a look on cygwin.com