Can Linux files be opened in Windows?

[misscfc]

Can you open a windows file in linux or vice versa (providing the software the file was saved in has both a linux & windows version)? I need to know before getting into Linux too deep? CLUELESS! Thanks for sharing your expertise.

[oz]

Can you open a windows file in linux or vice versa (providing the software the file was saved in has both a linux & windows version)? I need to know before getting into Linux too deep? CLUELESS! Thanks for sharing your expertise.

Welcome to the forums!

If each OS has an application that will open that file type, then yes, you can do it. For example, I open text files from one OS to the other all the time.

[M-88]

Text douments would be able to be opened. The problem is, windows can't natively read the file systems that Linux uses - EXT, LVM, ...

You can get 3rd party applications to do this.

[xlinux1010]

This is too broad of a question, you need to do more research into the differences between linux and windows.... yes you can view files from a windows hard disk on linux, and there are ways of doing the reverse as well, however, packages that need to be compiled, such as those written in C languages, will generally not run on the other operating system. You can still view the files, read/ write them from a text editor, but you cannot run the actual program as it relies on the operating system (windows or linux) to run properly. However, there are many packages that are not operating system specific as they run at a language that is "removed" from the core operating system, for example, you can run many web applications on either windows or linux, you just need to install the proper libraries.

Overall, it depends on your needs, if you have specific packages that you want to run on windows but are using a linux machine, your best bet is to download the free virtualbox (under synaptic in ubuntu) as this will allow you to install a guest /virtual windows machine that you run from within your ubuntu machine.... this is great for most things except its hard to get 3D application support but for most needs it is fine.