Executable file generated using GCC under cygwin

Despite widespread rumours, Cygwin is not a Linux emulator, i.e. it doesn't produce or run Linux executables. For that you'll need a virtual machine or coLinux.

Instead, Cygwin is a compatibility layer, which aims to implement as much as possible of the POSIX and Linux APIs within Windows. This means that programs have to be compiled specifically for Cygwin, but it also means that it's better integrated with Windows, e.g. it lets you mix POSIX and Windows APIs in the same program.

It's the cygwin1.dll that provides that compatibility layer. If you build non-Cygwin executables using gcc-3's -mno-cygwin switch or one of the MinGW compilers, then of course you can't use any POSIX/Linux-specific APIs, and any such calls will need to be replaced with Windows equivalents.

Cygwin is an emulation layer. It allows UNIX code to run on Windows, if you compile it to use the emulation layer. To Windows it looks like any normal DLL and makes OS calls as normal. But when you compile against it, it shows the same functions as UNIX (well, POSIX technically, but UNIX it is)

1) When you build with cygwin, it automatically brings in this cygwin1.dll. This is the code that you need to make it look like UNIX. There are flags to make it not use this cygwin dll, meaning ignore the UNIX stuff and use native Windows calls. the -mno-cygwin flag will make the binary a native Windows binary, not using cygwin emulation. As others have said, you also need the -mwindows to make actual GUI apps using cygwin gcc.

2) To compile on one platform to run on another platform, you need what's called a cross compiler. You also need the libraries and headers for the other system. For what you want you'd need a cygwin-Linux cross compiler, Linux headers and libraries. It would probably be much easier to run Linux in a virtual machine than to set this up.

3) Remember that Cygwin just looks like UNIX to UNIX source code, not to Linux binaries. Once you compile things, the function calls are windows DLL calls. A cygwin program is still a Windows program (which is why you need a Windows style DLL to run it). Cygwin provides code for UNIX functions/system calls such as fork(), but even the method of calling them is now different. fork() now calls into a Windows DLL, not into a Linux kernel. It's still a very different system.