Is there any free software that do the exact things just like VMware...i want to emulate the whole Linux os to be run under windows platform.....thanks

redhat provides a product called "cygwin"

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for but it emulates the linux OS on windows.

Its distributed under the GNU license.

http://www.cygwin.com

for my case, i have a dual boot system, linux and xp.....im looking for a software that can emulate my linux OS......for cygwin.....if im not mistaken, it only simulates an linux working environment only , right? correct me if im wrong , thx

cygwin can emulate an X window environment.

is that what you mean by emulate? Or do you mean log into your linux os partition?

I do not believe any software will do this.

Check http://sourceforge.net/projects/bochs/

ok....to make things easier....can cygwin perform just like VMware?

this is where I'm stupid. What is vmware? I've looked on their website and it isn't very clear.

Can you give me a quick two-sentance summary of it?

vmWare is an emulator of PC. It emulates a virtual pc (its hardware, bios,...).
Lets say you have a machine with Windows 2000. You can install vmware workstation, create new virtual machine(s) and install almost any operating system (linux, unix, windows,...) on this virtual machine. So u have two or more computers running at the same time (one physical and others are virtual). The cool thing about it is that even virtual computers can have their IP in the network.

Oh, I see. That sounds interesting. I didn't know such software existed.

Then to answer your question, no. Cygwin does not emulate hardware like a second computer. It only emulates a linux shell and can run linux programs, assuming you compiled them correctly.

I use the Linux version of Vmware on my computer but, there are alternatives. I have heard Bochs occasionally mentioned as an open source alternative. There was also a recent anouncement about CoLinux. I am not sure if CoLinux is something that is available and ready to be used or not. There is also the Vmware like product that was recently bought out by Microsoft but, I can not remember what that is called. The only one that I have ever used and know much about is Vmware. I barely even know what the other alternatives are.

Bochs is an open source PC emulator that is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation. http://bochs.sourceforge.net/

Cooperative Linux is something new that that claims to be able to run Linux on Windows and somhow do it without using a commercial PC virtualization software such as VMware.
http://colinux.org/

There are several versions of Vmware. One version of Vmware workstation is used to run Linux or other operating systems under Windows. The is another version that that is used to run Windows or other operating systems under Linux. One thing that I do not like about the Linux version of Vmware is that it is a pain to configure it correctly to share USB or Parallel port devices such as printers and scanners. I suspect that it might be easier to do that under the Windows version of VMware but I am not sure. Another thing that I dislike somewhat is that Vmware does not support all versions of all Linux distros. I use Vmware and would not want to give it up but, I am just warning anyone reading this that configuring every last detail perfectly might might be difficult. By the way, there are also other versions of VMware that are designed for use by large companies.