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Operating System Computer -Operating systems can be found on almost anything made with integrated circuits, such as personal computers, internet servers, cellphones, music players, routers, switches, wireless access points, network storage, game consoles, digital cameras, sewing machines and telescopes.
In most cases, the operating system is not the first code to run on the computer at startup (boot) time. The initial code executing on the computer is usually loaded from firmware, which is stored in Flash ROM. This is sometimes called the BIOS or boot ROM. The firmware loads and executes the operating system kernel (usually from disk, sometimes over the network), and is usually responsible for the first graphics or text output the user sees on screen.
Common contemporary desktop OSes are Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows
and Solaris. Windows is most popular on desktops while Linux is most
popular in server environments. Linux, Mac OS X and MS Windows all have
server and personal variants. With the exception of Microsoft Windows,
the designs of each of the aforementioned OSs were inspired by, or
directly inherited from, the Unix operating system. Unix was developed
at Bell Labs beginning in the late 1960s and spawned the development of
numerous free and proprietary operating systems.
Operating systems os The most important program that runs on a
computer. Every general-purpose computer must have an operating system
to run other programs. Operating systems perform basic tasks, such as
recognizing input from the keyboard, sending output to the display
screen, keeping track of files and directories on the disk, and
controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers.
For large systems, the operating system has even greater
responsibilities and powers. It is like a traffic cop -- it makes sure
that different programs and users running at the same time do not
interfere with each other. The operating system is also responsible for
security, ensuring that unauthorized users do not access the system.
Operating systems can be classified as follows:
a. multi-user : Allows two or more users to run programs at the same
time. Some operating systems permit hundreds or even thousands of
concurrent users.
b. multiprocessing : Supports running a program on more than one CPU.
c. multitasking : Allows more than one program to run concurrently.
d. multithreading : Allows different parts of a single program to run concurrently.
e. real time: Responds to input instantly. General-purpose operating systems, such as DOS and UNIX, are not real-time.
Operating systems provide a software platform on top of which other
programs, called application programs, can run. The application
programs must be written to run on top of a particular operating
system. Your choice of operating system, therefore, determines to a
great extent the applications you can run. For PCs, the most popular
operating systems are DOS, OS/2, and Windows, but others are available,
such as Linux.
As a user, you normally interact with the operating system through a
set of commands. For example, the DOS operating system contains
commands such as COPY and RENAME for copying files and changing the
names of files, respectively. The commands are accepted and executed by
a part of the operating system called the command processor or command
line interpreter. Graphical user interfaces allow you to enter commands
by pointing and clicking at objects that appear on the screen
Operating system types
As computers have progressed and developed so have the types of
operating systems. Below is a basic list of the different types of
operating systems and a few examples of Operating Systems that fall
into each of the categories. Many computer Operating Systems will fall
into more than one of the below categories.
GUI - Short for Graphical User Interface, a GUI Operating System
contains graphics and icons and is commonly navigated by using a
computer mouse. See our GUI dictionary definition for a complete
definition. Below are some examples of GUI Operating Systems.
System 7.x
Windows 98
Windows CE
Multi-user - A multi-user Operating System allows for multiple users to
use the same computer at the same time and/or different times. See our
multi-user dictionary definition for a complete definition for a
complete definition. Below are some examples of multi-user Operating
Systems.
Linux
Unix
Windows 2000
Multiprocessing - An Operating System capable of supporting and
utilizing more than one computer processor. Below are some examples of
multiprocessing Operating Systems.
Linux
Unix
Windows 2000
Multitasking - An Operating system that is capable of allowing multiple
software processes to run at the same time. Below are some examples of
multitasking Operating Systems.
Unix
Windows 2000
Multithreading - Operating systems that allow different parts of a
software program to run concurrently. Operating systems that would fall
into this category are:
Linux, Unix, Microsoft Windows 2000.
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