different behaviour between emacs on linux and emacs on windows

[Ted]

The behaviour I am interested in involves use of a dialog box for
navigating the file system to locate files to open.  I believe the
version of emacs on Linux is 21.4 (it came with SUSE Linux v10), while
that of emacs on WIndows is 21.3.  On Windows, I get a dialog box I can
use to navigate the file system to find whatever file I want to open
it.  On Linux, I do not get such a dialog box.  Instead, I have to
remember where all my files are and type in the full path and file
name.  Is there a dialog of the sort I value available in emacs running
on Linux, just hiding somewhere waiting to be found and enabled?  If
so, please tell me where it is and how to enable it.

Thanks

Ted