A Guide to Computer Operating Systems [aboutcomputer99.blogspot.com]

A Guide to Computer Operating Systems [aboutcomputer99.blogspot.com]

Windows Operating System: The ongoing saga of learning how a computer works, what it can do for you and why it is better than pen and paper. This is chapter 2 in the Luddites guide to computers and covers Windows Operating System. Stay tuned for more! Buy the whole video for A.95 including postage from robsimms@item.com.au.

aboutcomputer99.blogspot.com Computer Basics Ch 3 - Windows XP Operating System

There are more operating systems available on the market than ever before, giving consumers more choices and flexibility. The vast array of choices also allows users to customize a system to their specific needs.

An operating system is effectively the brains of your computer, turning your raw hardware into a thinking machine. It is vital to your computer's operations, allowing it to install and run programs, and use peripherals, and share information with other users; all of which pretty well covers everything your computer does. It is the first thing installed on your computer, and it is useless without one.

Most of the popular operating systems use GUI (graphic user interface). GUI allows users to interact with their computer's operating system visually, usually through a mouse. These operating systems include all versions of Windows for personal computers and OS for Apple computers.

Operating systems fall into a few broad categories, as least as their popularly used; Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Windows 1 was released on November 20, 1985.

It was culmination of nearly a decade of work on the part of software engineers to develop a user-friendly operating system. Since then, Windows has become a business standard in use all over the world.

While Windows is by far the dominant operating system on personal computers, it is not the only one. Linux is a Unix-based operating system developed by software engineer Linus Torvalds. Linux is unique in the family of operating systems because it doesn't come as a finished product.

Linux is an open source kernel of an operating system. This means that Linux is a simple, bare bones operating system for which the code is readily available to any programmer that wants to take a crack at adding on to it or improving it.

These improved versions are called distributions, and can be made to suit any number of different types of users or applications.

No single company owns the rights to Linux. There is no Linux company, though a number of websites and businesses have grown up around writing distributions and creating an active community of users and programmers.

Because Linux is so customizable and flexible, it has become a favorite of IT professionals, corporate servers, and power users generally.

Apple's Mac OS operating systems have also benefited from a lineage that can be traced to Unix. Mac OS X, the latest incarnation of Mac OS, can be customized by the user to trim back features the user doesn't need, which can speed up the machine considerably. Amateurs beware! It can take years of study and practice to do this effectively and should only be approached by those serious enough to learn what it takes. Here, a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing indeed.

The book is far from finished when it comes to operating system research and development. Brain trusts all over the world continue to research the possibilities in making operating systems smarter, more efficient, and more adaptive. These organizations include the University of Washington, Sun Microsystems Inc, Xerox PARC, and Sony's computer science laboratory. 

More A Guide to Computer Operating Systems Articles

Question by : What are some underrated Computer Operating Systems? We've all heard of Windows, Linux, and Mac. Now I would like to know, what are some underrated operating systems out there and why? I mean PC/computer operating systems please, not Symbian, or Android, or iOS, etc. Please no flame wars, we all have our preferences. Please try to provide references to cool/unique features of those OS's. Please list as many OS's as you can. Best answer for What are some underrated Computer Operating Systems?:

Answer by F-U-N
Here is a list if this is any interest to you http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operating_systems There are over 20 operating systems that have been developed, but windows, linux and mac are most popular.

Answer by inclusive_disjunction
I think FreeDOS is pretty cool. It doesn't have any particularly unique features, but its great for playing older games if you're anti-Microsoft. It also has a nice setup program that makes it fairly easy to set up working networking. http://www.freedos.org/ ReactOS is an open source implementation of Windows. It is still quite buggy and has some compatibility problems, so its shaping up to be just as good as the real thing :) http://www.reactos.org AROS is a clone of AmigaOS (an operating system for old non-PC computers that crammed a ton of stuff into like 4 MB of RAM). It doesn't have too much in the way of features yet, but it has one of the fastest boots for a graphical operating system I've ever seen. http://aros.sourceforge.net/ QNX is a realtime operating system used in many embedded systems like car computers and nuclear control systems, but it can also be run on a standard PC. Other than a responsive interface it isn't particularly unique as far as the average user is concerned, but it is widely known for its reliability. http://www.qnx.com/

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