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Working in a Windows Environment
There are two main ways to set up a working Unix environment in Windows. You can install software providing most of the Posix Unix environment, such as Cygwin or MinGW. Alternatively, if you have sufficient disk space and memory (>2GB), you can create a virtual machine that runs a real Unix distribution, e.g., Ubuntu. Below are more details on the options available for that.
Installing Unix in a virtual machine
VirtualBox
- Installing VirtualBox -- download the "VirtualBox 4.3.6 for Windows hosts" version from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and follow the installation and configuration instructions in chapter 1 of the User manual.
- Selecting a Linux distribution. You can use an already configured VirtualBox image, such as those listed at http://virtualboxes.org/images/. For example, if you decide to go with Ubuntu, you can select a recent version (e.g., number 16) from the list at http://virtualboxes.org/images/ubuntu/.