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Older Revision of Linux Guide for Windows Users

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Linux Guide for Windows Users

It's hard to move from a comfortable operating system to a fresh and new operating system that you've never touched before. This document shows you software applications that are equivalent from one operating system to another.

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Software Included in Microsoft Windows

This section helps you find Linux software to replace your Microsoft Windows software.

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Command Prompt

Were you a DOS guru before you started using Windows? If so, you probably couldn't have lived without the Windows Command Prompt. You are in luck with Linux, because the DOS prompt was a variant of the UNIX shell. Every Linux distribution comes with the UNIX shell built-in. Just look for "Terminal" in the GUI. If you can find that, try "xterm", "konsole", "aterm", "mlterm", etc.

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Internet Explorer

The whole Windows interface is based off the Internet Explorer web browser now. So you have, no doubt, lots of experience with it. But once you are on Linux, there aren't any standard browsers to choose from. Depending on the distribution, you will have either Konqueror or Firefox installed with your distribution. Personally, I'd go with Firefox. If your distribution didn't come with it installed, you can download it from the Firefox web site and install it yourself.

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Notepad

Notepad is a very basic text editor. Linux comes bundled with lots of text editors as well. My personal favorite is "mousepad" on Gnome. On KDE, you can use "kedit". "nedit" with all the fancy features turned off also makes a good basic text editor.

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Remote Desktop Connection

Do you use your Windows computer remotely a lot? You are likely using Remote Desktop Connection on Windows. The Linux equivalent is "rdesktop". It works virtually identical to Remote Desktop Connection, except you have to started it on the command-line.

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Task Manager

Task Manager is a built-in GUI tool that monitors your system resources, such as processor usage, memory usage, etc. Most UNIX guru prefers the command-line version like "top", "uptime", and "ps". But on KDE, you can find a GUI version that is very similar to Task Manager. It's called "KDE System Guard". GNOME has something similar called the "GNOME System Monitor".

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