You need Windows to run Awesome Miner, but you can monitor any computer or device running Cgminer or Sgminer, using the "External Miner" feature.

It works fine to monitor standalone ASIC's like Antminer S1 and KnC Neptune, or computers running Linux. When connected to any of these, you can manage pools (switch, add, enable, disable, prioritize and so on), manage devices, and of course see statistics and other information.

To fully manage a remote computer using the "Managed Miner" feature, with support for starting mining process and reboot computer, you need to run the Remote Service that is only available on Windows.

To summarize, you don't need Windows to be running on your miners, but if you do, you can get additional features not provided by Cgminer itself. In the screenshot you see above, there are four miners running and Awesome Miner shows statistics and provides operations for all of them:
- Two miners running Windows (Managed Miner)
- Two different ASIC's running Linux (External Miner)