There are a lot of pages out there that will give you a long list of Windows software with Linux equivalents. I decided to go the other way, and provide a list of Windows equivalents for common Unix and Linux software.

Now, obviously, I won’t be able to get everything here. Since *nix users will tend to be power users, or will need to administrate other systems, I have included important command-line and system administration tools.

1. Bash

Windows equivalent: CMD and PowerShell.

Command prompt, aka cmd is the basic command line for Windows. It allows you to execute programs, pipe output, send output to files, etc. For relatively new Windows users, press Winkey-R (the equivalent of Alt-F2 is many desktop environments) and enter cmd. This launches the command line.

The other command line for Windows is PowerShell. PowerShell has a steep learning curve, but is much more powerful than the basic command line.

2. Telnet and SSH

Windows has a built-in basic telnet program which can be used in Command Prompt. The syntax is basically the same as the typically Unix implementation (telnet host [port]) but is not very feature-rich. A much better program is PuTTY. PuTTY is a free Telnet and SSH program, supporting many SSH features such as tunneling.

3. FTP, SCP, SFTP

WinSCP is a free file transfer client supporting FTP, SCP, and SFTP with a little PuTTY integration. It has a MC-like interface which is easy to use, especially for people who actually used MC.

4. Services management

Run services.msc to get to the Windows Services Manager. Here, you can do the things you would normally do with the stuff in /etc/init.d. You can start, stop, restart, and even pause some services. You can also set which services should start on startup, and which should be disabled.

5. su/sudo

The runas program allows you to run a program as another user. It is a command-line program, and I won’t go over it, because it prints a usage message when invoked. Basically, you specify a user and program, and enter the password for that user. The “administrator” user is not quite the same as “root”. “Local System” is equivalent to root. Especially with more recent versions of Windows, you will need to have elevated privileges in order to do certain things.

6. SELinux

Windows 6+ has a feature called User Account Control. It is quite annoying, but does add a layer of security. It can be configured to ask for a password, like how gksu would. By default it only makes you click a button, which isn’t security if, say, you’re away from your desk. Someone could still tamper with your computer by simply clicking. My advice: if you leave UAC turned on, make it ask for a password.

That’s all for now. I feel I have covered the basic things. Stay tuned for more.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 21:19 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.