OPERATING SYSTEM

What is Operating System?

Posted in Computer Software | August 5th, 2010
The operating system is system software that is stored on the storage device such as hard disk,
CD-ROM, floppy disk (or in ROM). When a computer is switched on, the operating system is
transferred from the storage device into main memory through ROM program. The handheld
devices have the entire operating system in the ROM. This type of operating system is difficult
to update.
An operating system controls and co-ordinates the overall operations of the computer system. It
manages the computer hardware, controls the execution of application programs and provides the
set of services to the users. The operating system acts as an interface between user and the
computer. The users interact with the operating system indirectly through application program.
Operating system manages all the operations of the computer and performs basic tasks such as;
• Accepts input from input devices.
• Sends output to output devices.
• Manages the application programs in memory.
• Manages the files on the storage devices.
• Manages & controls the I/O devices etc.
The operating system is responsible for managing hardware resources. An application program
cannot access input/output devices or execute program instructions itself. The operating system
performs these tasks through CPU on behalf of application programs. The operating system acts
as a platform on which various application programs are executed. The user requests the
application program to perform a particular task and the application program refers the request of
user to operating system. Figure below shows the actual position of an operating in a computer
system.
Operating System Position

Usually, operating system is divided into two parts;

i) Resident part: This part of operating system is known as kernel. It contains the critical,
functions. It is loaded into the main memory during the booting process of computer. It performs
various functions residing in the main memory. The kernel will be discussed in the next topic.
ii) Non-resident part: This part of operating system is loaded into main memory when required.
The Examples of operating systems are:
• Disk Operating System (DOS) developed by Microsoft.
• Operating System 2 (QS/2) developed by IBM.
• XENIX or ZENIX developed by Microsoft.
• WTNOWS developed by Microsoft and also WINDOWS- NE Now-a-days, the most
popular operating system is Windows operating system.

Types of Operating Systems (Part 1)

Posted in Computer Software | August 5th, 2010
In the past, the operating systems were computer. (or device) dependent. An operating system
running on one machine could not be run on another different model machine. When a
manufacturer introduces a new computer or new model of computer then an operating system
has to be developed to operate that machine. The application programs often would not work on
the new computer because the applications were designed to work with a specific operating
system.
Some operating systems are still device dependent. Now-a-days, operating systems are mostly
device (or computer) independent and can run on computers made by different companies. The
operating systems are divided into different categories. Three basic categories are:
1. Personal computer operating system.
2. Network operating system.
3. Embedded operating system.

1- Personal Computer Operating System

The personal computer operating systems are also called the stand-alone operating systems or
single user operating systems that are used to operate personal computers. The examples of
personal computer operating system are:
1. DOS
2. Mac OS
3. Windows
1. DOS
DOS stands for Disk Operating System. It is a single user operating system used in
microcomputers. It is a command line interface operating system. Microsoft Corporation
developed it for IBM 8086 microprocessor computers. It was the most popular operating system
in microcomputers before the Windows.
The DOS is updated periodically. It has different versions like DOS 3.0, DOS 3.1, DOS 3.2 DOS
7.0 and soon. Today it is rarely used.
2. Mac OS
Mac OS is developed by Apple Corporation in 1984 for Macintosh It was one of first computers.
This operating system provides the GUI. It was one of first operating system that introduced the
GUI.
3. Windows
Microsoft Windows introduced by Microsoft. It is most used and powerful GUI operating
system.
2. Network Operating System
A network operating system is an operating system that supports the network. A network
operating system typically resides on a server and controls the devices or computers connected to
the network. The examples of the network operating system are:
• Windows NT Server
• Windows 2000 Server
• UNIX
 • Solaris
• Novell’s Netware
1) Windows NT Server
Windows NT Server is developed by Microsoft for Client/Server networks. The Server in the
network uses this operating system and the Client computer uses Windows NT workstation or
some other (personal computer) version of Windows operating system.
2) Windows 2000 Server
Windows 2000 Server is an upgraded form of Windows NT Server. It is also used in networking.
It consists of three products:
1. Windows 2000 server
2. Windows 2000 Advanced server
3. Windows 2000 data center server
3) UNIX
UNIX is a multi-user and multi-tasking operating system. It is very popular operating system
used in microcomputers to Supercomputer. It provides the command line interface. It was
developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories of USA. It was specially developed at AT&T for their
own minicomputers. Microsoft Company of USA also developed a version of UNIX, which is
named as XENIX. It is mainly used in network environment because it has powerful security
features.

4) Solaris

Solaris is a version of UNIX. It was developed by Sun Microsystems. It is a network operating

system designed specifically for F-commerce applications. It has very advanced security features
and is used for online transactions systems. The client computers also use a version of Solaris
called CDE (Common Desktop Environment).
5) Novell’s Netware
Novell’s Netware is network operating system designed for client/server networks. It has two
portions.
Server portion: It resides on the network server.
Client portion: It resides on each client computer connected to the network.
The Server portion of the network operating system controls the devices’ such as printers,
computers connected to the network as well as manages the files and application software on the
Server. The Client portion establishes the communication between Client computer and the
Server. The Client computers also have their own operating systems such as Windows, DOS etc.
3. Embedded Operating System
Different special electronic devices (or handheld computers) are also controlled by the operating
systems that are stored into a ROM chip. These operating systems are called the Embedded
Operating Systems. The examples of embecl4ed Operating system are:
• Windows CE
• Pocket PC 2002
 • Palm operating system
i) Windows CE
Windows CE is designed for the use in wireless communication devices, smaller computer such
as handheld computer, in-vehicle devices etc. Windows CE interface is similar to that of
Windows operating system. This operating system also supports multitasking, Internet access, e-
mails etc. Many application programs such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel etc. that are
developed for this operating system can be run with Windows CE.
ii) Pocket PC 2002
Pocket PC 2002 is, also developed by Microsoft and is used on a specific type of handheld
computer called the pocket PC. It is similar to Windows XP operating system and is used to
access Internet, listen to music, and watch a video and to create word processing and spreadsheet
documents etc.

Examples of operating systems

[edit] Microsoft Windows

Windows 7, shown here, is the newest release of Windows.

Microsoft Windows is a family of proprietary operating systems most commonly used on

personal computers. It is the most common family of operating systems for the personal
computer, with about 90% of the market share.[5][6][7] Currently, the most widely used version of
the Windows family is Windows XP[citation needed], released on October 25, 2001. The newest
version is Windows 7 for personal computers and Windows Server 2008 R2 for servers.
It originated in 1981 as an add-on to the older MS-DOS operating system for the IBM PC.
Released in 1985, Microsoft came to dominate the business world of personal computers, and
went on to set a number of industry standards and commonplace applications[POV? – Discuss].
Beginning with Windows XP, all modern versions are based on the Windows NT kernel. Current
versions of Windows run on IA-32 and x86-64 processors, although older versions sometimes
supported other architectures.
Windows is also used on servers, supporting applications such as web servers and database
servers. In recent years, Microsoft has spent significant marketing and research & development
money to demonstrate that Windows is capable of running any enterprise application, which has
resulted in consistent price/performance records (see the TPC) and significant acceptance in the
enterprise market. However, its usage in servers is not as widespread as personal computers, and
here Windows actively competes against Linux and BSD for market share, while still capturing a
steady majority by some accounts.[8][9]
[edit] Unix and Unix-like operating systems

Evolution of Unix systems

Main article: Unix

Ken Thompson wrote B, mainly based on BCPL, which he used to write Unix, based on his
experience in the MULTICS project. B was replaced by C, and Unix developed into a large,
complex family of inter-related operating systems which have been influential in every modern
operating system (see History). The Unix-like family is a diverse group of operating systems,
with several major sub-categories including System V, BSD, and GNU/Linux. The name
"UNIX" is a trademark of The Open Group which licenses it for use with any operating system
that has been shown to conform to their definitions. "Unix-like" is commonly used to refer to the
large set of operating systems which resemble the original Unix.
Unix-like systems run on a wide variety of machine architectures. They are used heavily for
servers in business, as well as workstations in academic and engineering environments. Free
Unix variants, such as GNU/Linux and BSD, are popular in these areas.
Some Unix variants like HP's HP-UX and IBM's AIX are designed to run only on that vendor's
hardware. Others, such as Solaris, can run on multiple types of hardware, including x86 servers
and PCs. Apple's Mac OS X, a hybrid kernel-based BSD variant derived from NeXTSTEP,
Mach, and FreeBSD, has replaced Apple's earlier (non-Unix) Mac OS.
Unix interoperability was sought by establishing the POSIX standard. The POSIX standard can
be applied to any operating system, although it was originally created for various Unix variants.
[edit] BSD and its descendants

The first server for the World Wide Web ran on NeXTSTEP, based on BSD.

Main article: Berkeley Software Distribution

A subgroup of the Unix family is the Berkeley Software Distribution family, which includes
FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. These operating systems are most commonly found on
webservers, although they can also function as a personal computer OS. The Internet owes much
of its existence to BSD, as many of the protocols now commonly used by computers to connect,
send and receive data over a network were widely implemented and refined in BSD. The world
wide web was also first demonstrated on a number of computers running an OS based on BSD
called NextStep.
BSD has its roots in Unix. In 1974, University of California, Berkeley installed its first Unix
system. Over time, students and staff in the computer science department there began adding
new programs to make things easier, such as text editors. When Berkely received new VAX
computers in 1978 with Unix installed, the school's undergraduates modified Unix even more in
order to take advantage of the computer's hardware possibilities. The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense took interest, and decided to fund
the project. Many schools, corporations, and government organizations took notice and started to
use Berkeley's version of Unix instead of the official one distributed by AT&T. Steve Jobs, upon
leaving Apple Inc. in 1985, formed NeXT Inc., a company that manufactured high-end
computers running on a variation of BSD called NeXTSTEP. One of these computers was used
by Tim Berners-Lee as the first webserver to create the World Wide Web.
Developers like Keith Bostic encouraged the project to replace any non-free code that originated
with Bell Labs. Once this was done, however, AT&T sued. Eventually, after two years of legal
disputes, the BSD project came out ahead and spawned a number of free derivatives, such as
FreeBSD and NetBSD. However, the two year wait had set the stage for two projects that would
ultimately eclipse[citation needed] both BSD and Unix: GNU and Linux.
[edit] Mac OS X

The standard user interface of Mac OS X

Main article: Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a line of partially proprietary graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and
sold by Apple Inc., the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently shipping Macintosh
computers. Mac OS X is the successor to the original Mac OS, which had been Apple's primary
operating system since 1984. Unlike its predecessor, Mac OS X is a UNIX operating system
built on technology that had been developed at NeXT through the second half of the 1980s and
up until Apple purchased the company in early 1997.
The operating system was first released in 1999 as Mac OS X Server 1.0, with a desktop-oriented
version (Mac OS X v10.0) following in March 2001. Since then, six more distinct "client" and
"server" editions of Mac OS X have been released, the most recent being Mac OS X v10.6,
which was first made available on August 28, 2009. Releases of Mac OS X are named after big
cats; the current version of Mac OS X is "Snow Leopard".
The server edition, Mac OS X Server, is architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart but
usually runs on Apple's line of Macintosh server hardware. Mac OS X Server includes work
group management and administration software tools that provide simplified access to key
network services, including a mail transfer agent, a Samba server, an LDAP server, a domain
name server, and others.
[edit] Plan 9
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy at Bell Labs designed and developed the C
programming language to build the operating system Unix. Programmers at Bell Labs went on to
develop Plan 9 and Inferno, which were engineered for modern distributed environments. Plan 9
was designed from the start to be a networked operating system, and had graphics built-in, unlike
Unix, which added these features to the design later. It is currently released under the Lucent
Public License. Inferno was sold to Vita Nuova Holdings and has been released under a
GPL/MIT license.
[edit] Linux and GNU
Main articles: GNU and Linux
Ubuntu, a common desktop distribution of Linux

Linux is the generic name for a UNIX-like operating system that can be used on a wide range of
devices from supercomputers to wristwatches. The Linux kernel is released under an open source
license, so anyone can read and modify its code. It has been modified to run on a large variety of
electronics. Although estimates suggest it is used on only 0.5-2% of all personal computers[citation
needed]
, it has been widely adopted for use in servers and embedded systems[citation needed] (such as cell
phones). Linux has superseded Unix in most places[which?], and is used on the 10 most powerful
supercomputers in the world[citation needed].
The GNU project is a mass collaboration of programmers who seek to create a completely free
and open operating system that was similar to Unix but with completely original code. It was
started in 1983 by Richard Stallman, and is responsible for many of the parts of most Linux
variants. For this reason, Linux is often called GNU/Linux. Thousands of pieces of software for
virtually every operating system are licensed under the GNU General Public License.
Meanwhile, the Linux kernel began as a side project of Linus Torvalds, a university student from
Finland. In 1991, Torvalds began work on it, and posted information about his project on a
newsgroup for computer students and programmers. He received a wave of support and
volunteers who ended up creating a full-fledged kernel. Programmers from GNU took notice,
and members of both projects worked to integrate the finished GNU parts into the linux kernel in
order to create a full-fledged operating system.
[edit] Google Chrome OS
An expected design of Google Chrome OS

Main article: Google Chrome OS

Chrome is an operating system based on the Linux kernel and designed by Google. Chrome
targets computer users that spend most of their time on the Internet—it is technically only a web
browser with no other applications, and relies on Internet applications used in the web browser to
accomplish tasks such as word processing and media viewing