Hi i have recently downloaded the cygwin emulator on my windows xp machine and i installed it onto my laptop and all was fine. The thing is i have never known how to use it really. I am wanting to use linux on windows since i have some programs that work on linux only.

I have a program called B-toolkit which i need linux to run, also i have a program which somebody created called RVM-FORTH which runs under linux.

Does anybody know how i can make these programs runable under cygwin? or do you think i am best download fedora or ubuntu, installing it on my laptop, dual booting and using vmware to load the linux up?

I wasn't sure if linux works with vmware, it probably does but if it isn't possible to run these things with cygwin then that is what i shall do.

Thank's, hope somebody can point me into the right direction of what i should be doing. sorry about the basic question but i wasn't sure how to install linux files on windows via an emulator.