[General] How are you and its alternatives

Hello,

If you ask "How are you", "How have you been", "How is it going", "How are you doing", "What's up", "How do you do", "Are you/are you doung/you are ok/good/well", do you mean the same and expect the same answer? And do you always have to answer this questions or can they be just a greeting? I've heard, that in the store/shop the cashier often say to you "Hi, how are you", what should I answer, just "Hi", Hi, fine, thanks" or "Hi, fine, thanks, how about you"? I persanally can't imagine him to tell me how he is, but would imagine it if you can use it really only as a greeting and not necessarily as a question (or rather not use, but take it as if it was only a greeting and not a question)
Also, do you use something/anything (what is right here by the way?) like "All/everything (is) green/alright/within an acceptable range"?

You are correct. The questions you listed are casual greetings, not real questions. People who ask them don't want to hear about your gall bladder, your dead turtle, or problems with your ex-wife/husband. For your last question "all right" (two words) works, but the others do not.

MikeNewYork said:

For your last question "all right" (two words) works, but the others do not.

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It works as one word for me in an informal context like answering many of these questions.;-)

I am not a fan of "alright".

I have never heard anyone use "All/everything (is) green/alright/within an acceptable range" or anything similar. If someone said to me "Hi. Is everything within an acceptable range?", I would have no idea what they were talking about. I've never heard "green" used in this way either.

I've heard, that in the store/shop the cashier often say to you "Hi, how are you", what should I answer, just "Hi", Hi, fine, thanks" or "Hi, fine, thanks, how about you"? I persanally can't imagine him to tell me how he is, but would imagine it if you can use it really only as a greeting and not necessarily as a question (or rather not use, but take it as if it was only a greeting and not a question)
Also, do you use something/anything (what is right here by the way?) like "All/everything (is) green/alright/within an acceptable range"?

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As MikeNY stated, the person who asks you casually "How are you?" or "How's it going?" isn't looking for an in-depth response; it's just a polite alternate greeting (in the US, anyway). As a rule, the traditional response is "Fine, how are/how about you?" However, if the cashier/clerk looks particularly busy (for example, you had waited in a long line for several minutes before being served), it is OK to respond to "How are you?" with something like "I'm fine, how about you? Looks like you're having a busy day." This gives the worker an opportunity to "blow off some steam" briefly - or at least shows him/her that someone notices how hard they are working. They might reply "Yes, it's been non-stop like this since 8 o'clock this morning" or "This is nothing, you should have seen the line an hour ago!"

Jill Dorchester said:

As MikeNY stated, the person who asks you casually "How are you?" or "How's it going?" isn't looking for an in-depth response; it's just a polite alternate greeting (in the US, anyway).

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It's the same in the UK.