DSL Compared to Microsoft Windows
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This page exists to help the new user discover the Linux equivalents for the tasks he regularly performs in his Microsoft operating system. The entries are meant to be very short with links to pages that offer more detail on and off the DSL site. This page is intended for all levels of Windows users from the casual to the most experienced.
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A reference for new users coming to DSL with Microsoft Windows experience
Why this page exists
This page exists to help the new user discover the Linux equivalents for the tasks he regularly performs in his Microsoft operating system. The entries are meant to be very short with links to pages that offer more detail on and off the DSL site. This page is intended for all levels of Windows users from the casual to the most experienced.
What will be found on this page
This page will list common Windows commands, tasks, and concepts and will provide the closest equivalents for the Damn Small Linux system. Where possible, short descriptions will be offered to enlighten the Windows user about the history and meaning of any cryptic commands.
Perspective
Topics that are targeted to the more sophisticated user will be presented in the most powerful and generic form possible. In most cases, this will be from the perspective of launching the commands from keyboard entry in the terminal. GUI alternatives may be suggested, but it should be noted that the graphically based applications in DSL are subject to change at a far higher rate than the console equivalents. This is partly due to DSL's main goal of packing the biggest wallop possible in 50 megabytes, and partly due to the fact that graphical applications may be superseded by better alternatives at the distribution maintainer's discretion.
The Comparisons
The Desktop
The Microsoft Windows desktop is an indivisible entity. It is the backbone of the operating system. The DOS console continues to exist in Windows, but it is an application running under the desktop.
Linux offers the opposite model. In Linux, the backbone of the system is the shell. The desktop is a graphical application that runs on top of the shell. The desktop application in Linux is known as the Window Manager (WM).
There are many different window managers available. DSL runs Joe's Window Manager (JWM) v2.0 by default in the 4.x versions. It runs Fluxbox v0.1.14 by default in the 3.x versions. See this thread for differences between the two.
On top of the WM, DSL runs Desktop File Manager (DFM) v0.99.9 to offer desktop shortcut icon functionality.
Under the Fluxbox WM, DSL also runs Fluxter and Torsmo to offer virtual desktop panels and runtime system resource status respectively.
File Manager (aka Explorer)
MS Windows offers Explorer.exe as the default File Manager. Available third party tools include Norton Commander and others.
There is a large offering of File Managers for Linux. DFM and ROX are two that are available for DSL.
DSL employs Desktop File Manager (DFM) v0.99.9 by default as its File Manager. This can be seen in the 4.x versions by double-clicking the Home and MyDSL launchers on the desktop. DFM has three running modes: normal, structured and detailed. The first shows items in tile view, the second shows directory / sub-directory relationships in tree view and the third shows entries as single-row information including file ownership and rights.
File Operations (e.g. Copy, Delete, Rename)
- Copy
- DOS: copy c:\autoexec.bat c:\autoexec.bak
- Linux: cp -i /home/dsl/.bashrc /home/dsl/.bashrc.bak
- Delete
- DOS: del c:\windows\temp\*.*
- Linux: rm -i /somefolder/*
- Rename
- DOS: ren thisfile.txt thatfile.txt
- Linux: mv thisfile.txt thatfile.txt
- Move
- DOS: move c:\autoexec.bak d:\backup
- Linux: mv /home/dsl/.bashrc.bak /backup/.
Printing / Printer Setup
See this thread for active discussion about this topic.
Setting up a Guest account with limited privileges
The prerequisites for setting up a DSL system with a limited privilege Guest account are:
- that you run DSL in multi-user mode
- that you create a user account using the System / AddUsers script (/usr/sbin/addusers.lua)
- that you can execute commands from the shell
User privileges are stored in the /etc/sudoers file. To edit this file safely, you must execute the next two commands in a shell window:
- export EDITOR=beaver
- visudo
Add two lines in the /etc/sudoers.tmp file in beaver. The first at the top of the file, the second at the bottom:
Cmnd_Alias SHUTDOWN = /usr/bin/exit.lua guest ALL = SHUTDOWN
The man page for sudo is found here.
Command.com
DSL equivalents: BusyBox, gnu-utils
Although this isn't a specific Windows command, it's important to know that the base console command executable has two equivalents in DSL. By default, core console functions are served up by the BusyBox application. Gnu-utils can be installed using MyDSL and offer a richer set of man pages.
Execute the command busybox at the console to see a list of available commands.
F1 and Help
In the console environment, executing man command , or command --help, or command -h will generally result in help text being written to the screen.
In GUI applications, varying levels of help are available and can usually be found from a Help command on the menu.
Autoexec.bat
opt/bootlocal.sh
System Inquiries
OS Version
- Windows
- Found by right-clicking on My Computer, then clicking Properties
- DSL
- Is displayed on the first tab of System Stats.
- DSL
- Is stored in a simple text file named: release.txt in the /usr/share/doc/dsl/ directory
Disk Usage
To find out how much memory is being used on the root drive:
du / -hs
To find out how much free space is available, type:
df -h
System Resource Status
free
Find File
find / -name bootlocal.sh -type f 2>/dev/null
Prints the path and location of all files named bootlocal.sh found nested under the root directory (/). Wildcards can be used in the file name.
For folder searches, use the -type d switch instead. For untyped searches, omit the -type switch completely.
The 2>/dev/null hushes the system from printing out error messages.
Helpful Linux Commands With No Windows Equivalents
Erase all files from the system that came from a tarball
tar -tzvf filename.tar.gz | xargs rm -f
List System Items
- lsmod
- lists all of the loaded modules (modules are equivalent to DLLs)
- lspci
- lists information about PCI cards
- lsusb
- lists information about USB devices
- cardctl ls
- lists your PCMCIA cards
