An operating system is the software Computer software, or just software, is the collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions telling a computer what to do. The term was coined to contrast to the old term hardware . In contrast to hardware, software is intangible, meaning it "cannot be touched". Software is also sometimes used in a more on a computer that manages the way different programs A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task for a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute the instructions. The same program in its human- use its hardware Hardware is a general term for the physical artifacts of a technology. It may also mean the physical components of a computer system, in the form of computer hardware, and regulates the ways that a user In computing, a user is a person who uses a computer or Internet service. A user may have a user account that identifies the user by a username , screen name (also screenname), or "handle", which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term. To log in to an account, a user is typically required to authenticate himself/herself/ controls the computer.[1][2] Operating systems are found on almost any device that contains a computer with multiple programs—from cellular phones A mobile phone or mobile is an electronic device used for mobile telecommunications (mobile telephone, text messaging or data transmission) over a cellular network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. Mobile phones differ from cordless telephones, which only offer telephone service within limited range, e.g. within a home or an office, and video game consoles A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game. The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal to supercomputers A supercomputer is a computer that is at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation. Supercomputers were introduced in the 1960s and were designed primarily by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation , which led the market into the 1970s until Cray left to form his own company, Cray Research. He then took over and web servers A web server is a computer program that delivers content, such as web pages, using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), over the World Wide Web. The term web server can also refer to the computer or virtual machine running the program. In large commercial deployments, a server computer running a web server can be rack-mounted with other servers. Some popular modern operating systems for personal computers include Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal, Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, Mac OS X has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems. It is the successor to Mac OS 9, the final release of the "classic" Mac OS, which had been Apple's primary operating system since 198, and Linux Linux refers to the family of Unix-like computer operating systems using the Linux kernel. Linux can be installed on a wide variety of computer hardware, ranging from mobile phones, tablet computers and video game consoles, to mainframes and supercomputers. Linux is predominantly known for its use in servers; in 2009 it held a server market share[3] (see also: list of operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap, comparison of operating systems Due to the large number and variety of available Linux distributions, they are all grouped under a single entry; see comparison of Linux distributions for a detailed comparison. There are also a variety of BSD operating systems, covered in comparison of BSD operating systems. For information on views of each operating system, see operating system).

Because early computers were often built for only a single task, operating systems did not exist in their proper form until the 1960s.[4] As computers evolved into being devices that could run different programs in succession, programmers began putting libraries of common programs (in the form of computer code In computer science, source code is any collection of statements or declarations written in some human-readable computer programming language. Source code is the mechanism most often used by programmers to specify the actions to be performed by a computer) onto the computer in order to avoid duplication and speed up the process. Eventually, computers began being built to automatically switch from one task to the next. The creation of runtime libraries In computer programming, a runtime library is a special program library used by a compiler, to implement functions built into a programming language, during the runtime of a computer program. This often includes functions for input and output, or for memory management to manage processing and printing speed came next, which evolved into programs that could interpret different types of programming languages into machine code. When personal computers by companies such as Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite, Atari Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari SA, IBM International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest technology company and the second most valuable by global brand (after Coca-Cola). IBM is one of the few information technology companies and Amiga The Amiga is a family of personal computers, beginning with Commodore company's 16-bit generation home computer. The first model appeared in 1985 as a high-end product with graphical, audio and multitasking capacities ahead of its time. The most popular model, Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 and became the leading home computer of the late 1980s became popular in the 1980s, vendors began adding features such as software scheduling and hardware maintenance.

An operating system can be divided into many different parts. One of the most important parts is the kernel In computing, the kernel is the central component of most computer operating systems; it is a bridge between applications and the actual data processing done at the hardware level. The kernel's responsibilities include managing the system's resources . Usually as a basic component of an operating system, a kernel can provide the lowest-level, which controls low-level processes that the average user usually cannot see: it controls how memory is read and written, the order in which processes are executed, how information is received and sent by devices like the monitor, keyboard and mouse, and deciding how to interpret information received by networks. The user interface In the industrial design field of human-machine interaction, the user interface is where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the machine which aids the operator in making operational decisions is the part of the operating system that interacts with the computer user directly, allowing them to control and use programs. The user interface may be graphical with icons and a desktop A graphical user interface (sometimes pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface item that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. A GUI, or textual, with a command line A command-line interface is a mechanism for interacting with a computer operating system or software by typing commands to perform specific tasks. This text-only interface contrasts with the use of a mouse pointer with a graphical user interface (GUI) to click on options, or menus on a text user interface (TUI) to select options. This method of. Another similar feature is an Application programming interface An Application Programming Interface is an interface implemented by a software program which enables it to interact with other software. It is similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. An API is implemented by applications, libraries, and operating systems to determine their vocabularies and, which is a set of services and code libraries that let applications interact with one another, as well as the operating system itself. Depending on the operating system, many of these components may not be considered an actual part. For example, Windows considers its user interface to be part of the operating system, while many versions of Linux do not.

Contents

History

The Manchester Mark became more than just a complex calculator by letting programmers run different types of processes, one of the early ideas of an operating system. Main article: History of operating systems The history of computer operating systems recapitulates to a degree the recent history of computer hardware

In the early 1950s, a computer could execute only one program at a time. Each user had sole use of the computer and would arrive at a scheduled time with program and data on punched paper cards and tape. The program would be loaded into the machine, and the machine would be set to work until the program completed or crashed. Programs could generally be debugged via a front panel using toggle switches and panel lights. It is said that Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was influential in the development of computer science and providing a formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, playing a significant role in the creation of the modern computer was a master of this on the early Manchester Mark 1 machine, and he was already deriving the primitive conception of an operating system from the principles of the Universal Turing machine.

Later machines came with libraries of software Computer software, or just software, is a general term primarily used for digitally stored data such as computer programs and other kinds of information read and written by computers. Today, this includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes and records. The term was coined in order to contrast to the, which would be linked to a user's program to assist in operations such as input and output and generating computer code Machine code or machine language is a system of instructions and data executed directly by a computer's central processing unit. Machine code may be regarded as a primitive programming language or as the lowest-level representation of a compiled and/or assembled computer program. Programs in interpreted languages are not represented by machine from human-readable symbolic code Assembly languages are a type of low-level languages for programming computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other integrated circuits. They implement a symbolic representation of the numeric machine codes and other constants needed to program a particular CPU architecture. This representation is usually defined by the hardware. This was the genesis of the modern-day operating system. However, machines still ran a single job at a time. At Cambridge University in England the job queue was at one time a washing line from which tapes were hung with different colored clothes-pegs to indicate job-priority.

Mainframe

OS/360 was put on all IBM mainframe computers beginning in 1964, including the computers that helped NASA put a man on the moon

Through the 1950s, many major features were pioneered in the field of operating systems, including input/output interrupt In computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous signal indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change in execution, buffering In computing, a buffer is a region of memory used to temporarily hold data while it is being moved from one place to another. Typically, the data is stored in a buffer as it is retrieved from an input device or just before it is sent to an output device (such as a printer). However, a buffer may be used when moving data between processes within a, multitasking In computing, multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for that task. Multitasking solves the problem by, spooling In computer science, spooling refers to a process of transferring data by placing it in a temporary working area where another program may access it for processing at a later point in time. The term "spool" is an acronym of "Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On Line "[citation needed]. The normal English verb "spool", and runtime libraries In computer programming, a runtime library is a special program library used by a compiler, to implement functions built into a programming language, during the runtime of a computer program. This often includes functions for input and output, or for memory management. These features were included or not included in application software at the option of application programmers, rather than in a separate operating system used by all applications. In 1959 the SHARE Operating System was released as an integrated utility for the IBM 704 The IBM 704, the first mass-produced computer with floating point arithmetic hardware, was introduced by IBM in April, 1954. The 704 was significantly improved over the IBM 701 in terms of architecture as well as implementation, and was not compatible with its predecessor and IBM 709 The IBM 709 was an early computer system introduced by IBM in August, 1958. It was an improved version of the IBM 704 and the second member of the IBM 700/7000 series of scientific computers. The IBM 709 added overlapped input/output, indirect addressing, and three "convert" instructions . The 709 had 32,768 words of 36-bit memory and mainframes.

In 1964, IBM International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest technology company and the second most valuable by global brand (after Coca-Cola). IBM is one of the few information technology companies produced the System/360 The IBM System/360 was a mainframe computer system family first announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and sold between 1964 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific. The design made a clear distinction between architecture and family of mainframe computers Mainframes are powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing, available in widely differing capacities and price points, for which a single operating system OS/360 OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, was a group of batch processing operating systems developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964. They were among the earliest operating systems to make direct access storage devices a prerequisite for their operation was provided, which eliminated costly, incompatible, ad-hoc programs for every individual model. This concept of a single OS spanning an entire product line was crucial for the success of System/360 and, in fact, IBM International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest technology company and the second most valuable by global brand (after Coca-Cola). IBM is one of the few information technology companies's current mainframe operating systems are distant descendants The history of operating systems running on IBM mainframes is a notable chapter of history of mainframe operating systems, because of IBM's long-standing position as the world's largest hardware supplier of mainframe computers of this original system; applications written for the OS/360 OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, was a group of batch processing operating systems developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964. They were among the earliest operating systems to make direct access storage devices a prerequisite for their operation can still be run on modern machines. In the mid-'70s, the MVS Multiple Virtual Storage, more commonly called MVS, was the most commonly used operating system on the System/370 and System/390 IBM mainframe computers. It was developed by IBM, but is unrelated to IBM's other mainframe operating system, VM, the descendant of OS/360 offered the first[citation needed] implementation of using RAM Random-access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order (i.e., at random). "Random" refers to the idea that any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether or not it is related to the as a transparent cache In computer science, a cache is a component that improves performance by transparently storing data such that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere. If requested data is contained in the for data.

OS/360 OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, was a group of batch processing operating systems developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964. They were among the earliest operating systems to make direct access storage devices a prerequisite for their operation also pioneered the concept that the operating system keeps track of all of the system resources that are used, including program and data space allocation in main memory and file space in secondary storage, and file locking File locking is a mechanism that restricts access to a computer file by only allowing one user or process access at any specific time. The purpose of locking is to prevent the classic interceding update scenario during update. When the process is terminated for any reason, all of these resources are re-claimed by the operating system.

An alternative CP-67 CP-67 was the control program portion of CP/CMS, a virtual machine operating system developed for the IBM System/360-67 by IBM's Cambridge Scientific Center. It was a reimplementation of their earlier research system CP-40, which ran on a one-off customized S/360-40. CP-67 was later reimplemented as CP-370, which IBM released as VM/370 in 1972, system started a whole line of operating systems focused on the concept of virtual machines A virtual machine is a software implementation of a machine (i.e. a computer) that executes programs like a physical machine.

Control Data Corporation developed the SCOPE operating system in the 1960s, for batch processing. In cooperation with the University of Minnesota, the KRONOS and later the NOS operating systems were developed during the 1970s, which supported simultaneous batch and timesharing use. Like many commercial timesharing systems, its interface was an extension of the Dartmouth BASIC operating systems, one of the pioneering efforts in timesharing and programming languages. In the late 1970s, Control Data and the University of Illinois developed the PLATO operating system, which used plasma panel displays and long-distance time sharing networks. Plato was remarkably innovative for its time, featuring real-time chat, and multi-user graphical games. Burroughs Corporation introduced the B5000 in 1961 with the MCP, (Master Control Program) operating system. The B5000 was a stack machine designed to exclusively support high-level languages with no machine language or assembler, and indeed the MCP was the first OS to be written exclusively in a high-level language – ESPOL, a dialect of ALGOL. MCP also introduced many other ground-breaking innovations, such as being the first commercial implementation of virtual memory. During development of the AS400, IBM made an approach to Burroughs to licence MCP to run on the AS400 hardware. This proposal was declined by Burroughs management to protect its existing hardware production. MCP is still in use today in the Unisys ClearPath/MCP line of computers.

UNIVAC, the first commercial computer manufacturer, produced a series of EXEC operating systems. Like all early main-frame systems, this was a batch-oriented system that managed magnetic drums, disks, card readers and line printers. In the 1970s, UNIVAC produced the Real-Time Basic (RTB) system to support large-scale time sharing, also patterned after the Dartmouth BASIC system.

General Electric and MIT developed General Electric Comprehensive Operating Supervisor (GECOS), which introduced the concept of ringed security privilege levels. After acquisition by Honeywell it was renamed to General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS).

Digital Equipment Corporation developed many operating systems for its various computer lines, including TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 time sharing systems for the 36-bit PDP-10 class systems. Prior to the widespread use of UNIX, TOPS-10 was a particularly popular system in universities, and in the early ARPANET community.

In the late 1960s through the late 1970s, several hardware capabilities evolved that allowed similar or ported software to run on more than one system. Early systems had utilized microprogramming to implement features on their systems in order to permit different underlying architecture to appear to be the same as others in a series. In fact most 360's after the 360/40 (except the 360/165 and 360/168) were microprogrammed implementations. But soon other means of achieving application compatibility were proven to be more significant.

The enormous investment in software for these systems made since 1960s caused most of the original computer manufacturers to continue to develop compatible operating systems along with the hardware. The notable supported mainframe operating systems include:

Microcomputers

PC-DOS was an early OS for personal computers that featured a command line interface. Mac OS by Apple Computers became the first widespread OS to feature a graphical user interface. Many of its features such as windows and icons would later become commonplace in GUIs.

The first microcomputers did not have the capacity or need for the elaborate operating systems that had been developed for mainframes and minis; minimalistic operating systems were developed, often loaded from ROM and known as Monitors. One notable early disk-based operating system was CP/M, which was supported on many early microcomputers and was closely imitated in MS-DOS, which became wildly popular as the operating system chosen for the IBM PC (IBM's version of it was called IBM DOS or PC DOS), its successors making Microsoft. In the 80's Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc.) abandoned its popular Apple II series of microcomputers to introduce the Apple Macintosh computer with an innovative Graphical User Interface (GUI) to the Mac OS.

The introduction of the Intel 80386 CPU chip with 32-bit architecture and paging capabilities, provided personal computers with the ability to run multitasking operating systems like those of earlier minicomputers and mainframes. Microsoft responded to this progress by hiring Dave Cutler, who had developed the VMS operating system for Digital Equipment Corporation. He would lead the development of the Windows NT operating system, which continues to serve as the basis for Microsoft's operating systems line. Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Inc., started NeXT Computer Inc., which developed the Unix-like NEXTSTEP operating system. NEXTSTEP would later be acquired by Apple Inc. and used, along with code from FreeBSD as the core of Mac OS X.

The GNU project was started by activist and programmer Richard Stallman with the goal of a complete free software replacement to the proprietary UNIX operating system. While the project was highly successful in duplicating the functionality of various parts of UNIX, development of the GNU Hurd kernel proved to be unproductive. In 1991 Finnish computer science student Linus Torvalds, with cooperation from volunteers over the Internet, released the first version of the Linux kernel. It was soon merged with the GNU userland and system software to form a complete operating system. Since then, the combination of the two major components has usually been referred to as simply "Linux" by the software industry, a naming convention which Stallman and the Free Software Foundation remain opposed to, preferring the name "GNU/Linux" instead. The Berkeley Software Distribution, known as BSD, is the UNIX derivative distributed by the University of California, Berkeley, starting in the 1970s. Freely distributed and ported to many minicomputers, it eventually also gained a following for use on PCs, mainly as FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD.

Examples of operating systems

Microsoft Windows

Windows XP is currently the most popular operating system for personal computers.

Microsoft Windows is a family of proprietary operating systems most commonly used on personal computers. It is by far the most common family of operating systems for the personal computer, taking in over 90% of the market share.[5][6][7] Currently, the most widely used version of the Microsoft Windows family is Windows XP, released on October 25, 2001. The newest version is Windows 7 for personal computers and Windows Server 2008 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. Beginning with Windows XP, all modern versions are based on the Windows NT kernel. Current versions of Windows runs on x86 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]

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 nicknamed "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.

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.

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 both BSD and Unix: GNU and Linux.

Plan 9

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.

Linux and GNU

Main articles: GNU and Linux Ubuntu, a common desktop distribution of Linux

Linux is a generic name for a member in a family of operating systems that can be found on anything from supercomputers to wristwatches. Because its components are open source, anyone can read and modify its code. Because of this, it has been modified for a huge variety of electronics. It is used on only 0.5-2% of all personal computers, but it is a silent giant in the world of cell phones, servers, and embedded systems. Linux has superseded Unix in most places, and is used on the 10 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

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.

Google Chrome OS

This is what Google Chrome OS is expected to look like. Main article: Google Chrome OS

Chrome is an operating system based on linux and designed by Google. It is currently in development, and targeted towards use in specific types of netbooks. 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.

Other

Older operating systems which are still used in niche markets include OS/2 from IBM and Microsoft; Mac OS, the non-Unix precursor to Apple's Mac OS X; BeOS; XTS-300. Some, most notably AmigaOS 4 and RISC OS, continue to be developed as minority platforms for enthusiast communities and specialist applications. OpenVMS formerly from DEC, is still under active development by Hewlett-Packard.

Components

The components of an operating system all exist in order to make the different parts of a computer work together. All software—from financial databases to film editors—needs to go through the operating system in order to use any of the hardware, whether it be as simple as a mouse or keyboard or complex as an internet connection.

The user interface

An example of the command line. Each command is typed out after the 'prompt', and then its output appears below, working its way down the screen. The current command prompt is at the bottom. An example of a graphical user interface. Programs take the form of images on the screen, and the files, folders, and applications take the form of icons and symbols. A mouse is used to navigate the computer. Main article: User Interface

Every computer that receives some sort of human input needs a user interface, which allows a person to interact with the computer. While devices like keyboards, mice and touchscreens make up the hardware end of this task, the user interface makes up the software for it. The two most common forms of a user interface have historically been the Command-line interface, where computer commands are typed out line-by-line, and the Graphical user interface, where a visual environment (most commonly with windows, buttons, and icons) is present. A third and more recent type is of user interface is the

Graphical user interfaces

Most of the modern computer systems support graphical user interfaces (GUI), and often include them. In some computer systems, such as the original implementations of Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS, the GUI is integrated into the kernel.

While technically a graphical user interface is not an operating system service, incorporating support for one into the operating system kernel can allow the GUI to be more responsive by reducing the number of context switches required for the GUI to perform its output functions. Other operating systems are modular, separating the graphics subsystem from the kernel and the Operating System. In the 1980s UNIX, VMS and many others had operating systems that were built this way. GNU/Linux and Mac OS X are also built this way. Modern releases of Microsoft Windows such as Windows Vista implement a graphics subsystem that is mostly in user-space, however versions between Windows NT 4.0 and Windows Server 2003's graphics drawing routines exist mostly in kernel space. Windows 9x had very little distinction between the interface and the kernel.

Many computer operating systems allow the user to install or create any user interface they desire. The X Window System in conjunction with GNOME or KDE is a commonly found setup on most Unix and Unix-like (BSD, GNU/Linux, Solaris) systems. A number of Windows shell replacements have been released for Microsoft Windows, which offer alternatives to the included Windows shell, but the shell itself cannot be separated from Windows.

Numerous Unix-based GUIs have existed over time, most derived from X11. Competition among the various vendors of Unix (HP, IBM, Sun) led to much fragmentation, though an effort to standardize in the 1990s to COSE and CDE failed for the most part due to various reasons, eventually eclipsed by the widespread adoption of GNOME and KDE. Prior to free software-based toolkits and desktop environments, Motif was the prevalent toolkit/desktop combination (and was the basis upon which CDE was developed).

Graphical user interfaces evolve over time. For example, Windows has modified its user interface almost every time a new major version of Windows is released, and the Mac OS GUI changed dramatically with the introduction of Mac OS X in 1999.[10]

The kernel

A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. Main article: Kernel (computing)

Outside of firmware, the operating system provides the most basic level of control over the hardware. It manages memory addresses in the RAM, it controls which processes access the different modes of the CPU, and it organizes the data on disks with file systems. These not only streamline the ability of many different programs to be run at once on all of these parts; it also makes sure that faulty or malicious code does not damage the hardware.

Program execution

Main article: Process (computing)

The operating system acts as an interface between an application and the hardware. The user interacts with the hardware from "the other side". The operating system is a set of services which simplifies development of applications. Executing a program involves the creation of a process by the operating system. The kernel creates a process by assigning memory and other resources, establishing a priority for the process (in multi-tasking systems), loading program code into memory, and executing the program. The program then interacts with the user and/or other devices and performs its intended function.

Interrupts

Main article: interrupt

Interrupts are central to operating systems, as they provide an efficient way for the operating system to interact with and react to its environment. The alternative—having the operating system "watch" the various sources of input for events (polling) that require action—can be found in older systems with very small stacks (50 or 60 bytes) but fairly unusual in modern systems with fairly large stacks. Interrupt-based programming is directly supported by most modern CPUs. Interrupts provide a computer with a way of automatically saving local register contexts, and running specific code in response to events. Even very basic computers support hardware interrupts, and allow the programmer to specify code which may be run when that event takes place.

When an interrupt is received, the computer's hardware automatically suspends whatever program is currently running, saves its status, and runs computer code previously associated with the interrupt; this is analogous to placing a bookmark in a book in response to a phone call. In modern operating systems, interrupts are handled by the operating system's kernel. Interrupts may come from either the computer's hardware or from the running program.

When a hardware device triggers an interrupt, the operating system's kernel decides how to deal with this event, generally by running some processing code. The amount of code being run depends on the priority of the interrupt (for example: a person usually responds to a smoke detector alarm before answering the phone). The processing of hardware interrupts is a task that is usually delegated to software called device driver, which may be either part of the operating system's kernel, part of another program, or both. Device drivers may then relay information to a running program by various means.

A program may also trigger an interrupt to the operating system. If a program wishes to access hardware for example, it may interrupt the operating system's kernel, which causes control to be passed back to the kernel. The kernel will then process the request. If a program wishes additional resources (or wishes to shed resources) such as memory, it will trigger an interrupt to get the kernel's attention.

Protected mode, supervisor mode, and virtual modes

Main articles: Protected mode and Supervisor mode Privilege rings for the x86 available in protected mode. Operating systems determine which processes run in each mode.

Modern CPUs support multiple modes of operation. CPUs with this capability use at least two modes: protected mode and supervisor mode. The supervisor mode is used by the operating system's kernel for low level tasks that need unrestricted access to hardware, such as controlling how memory is written and erased, and communication with devices like graphics cards. Protected mode, in contrast, is used for almost everything else. Applications operate within protected mode, and can only use hardware by communicating with the kernel, which controls everything in supervisor mode. CPUs might have other modes similar to protected mode as well, such as the virtual modes in order to emulate older processor types, such as 16-bit processors on a 32-bit one, or 32-bit processors on a 64-bit one.

When a computer first starts up, it is automatically running in supervisor mode. The first few programs to run on the computer, being the BIOS, bootloader and the operating system have unlimited access to hardware - and this is required because, by definition, initializing a protected environment can only be done outside of one. However, when the operating system passes control to another program, it can place the CPU into protected mode.

In protected mode, programs may have access to a more limited set of the CPU's instructions. A user program may leave protected mode only by triggering an interrupt, causing control to be passed back to the kernel. In this way the operating system can maintain exclusive control over things like access to hardware and memory.

The term "protected mode resource" generally refers to one or more CPU registers, which contain information that the running program isn't allowed to alter. Attempts to alter these resources generally causes a switch to supervisor mode, where the operating system can deal with the illegal operation the program was attempting (for example, by killing the program).

Memory management

Main article: memory management

Among other things, a multiprogramming operating system kernel must be responsible for managing all system memory which is currently in use by programs. This ensures that a program does not interfere with memory already used by another program. Since programs time share, each program must have independent access to memory.

Cooperative memory management, used by many early operating systems assumes that all programs make voluntary use of the kernel's memory manager, and do not exceed their allocated memory. This system of memory management is almost never seen anymore, since programs often contain bugs which can cause them to exceed their allocated memory. If a program fails it may cause memory used by one or more other programs to be affected or overwritten. Malicious programs, or viruses may purposefully alter another program's memory or may affect the operation of the operating system itself. With cooperative memory management it takes only one misbehaved program to crash the system.

Memory protection enables the kernel to limit a process' access to the computer's memory. Various methods of memory protection exist, including memory segmentation and paging. All methods require some level of hardware support (such as the 80286 MMU) which doesn't exist in all computers.

In both segmentation and paging, certain protected mode registers specify to the CPU what memory address it should allow a running program to access. Attempts to access other addresses will trigger an interrupt which will cause the CPU to re-enter supervisor mode, placing the kernel in charge. This is called a segmentation violation or Seg-V for short, and since it is both difficult to assign a meaningful result to such an operation, and because it is usually a sign of a misbehaving program, the kernel will generally resort to terminating the offending program, and will report the error.

Windows 3.1-Me had some level of memory protection, but programs could easily circumvent the need to use it. A general protection fault would be produced indicating a segmentation violation had occurred, however the system would often crash anyway.

Virtual memory

Many operating systems can "trick" programs into using memory scattered around the hard disk and RAM as if it is one continuous chunk of memory called virtual memory. Main article: Virtual memory

The use of virtual memory addressing (such as paging or segmentation) means that the kernel can choose what memory each program may use at any given time, allowing the operating system to use the same memory locations for multiple tasks.

If a program tries to access memory that isn't in its current range of accessible memory, but nonetheless has been allocated to it, the kernel will be interrupted in the same way as it would if the program were to exceed its allocated memory. (See section on memory management.) Under UNIX this kind of interrupt is referred to as a page fault.

When the kernel detects a page fault it will generally adjust the virtual memory range of the program which triggered it, granting it access to the memory requested. This gives the kernel discretionary power over where a particular application's memory is stored, or even whether or not it has actually been allocated yet.

In modern operating systems, memory which is accessed less frequently can be temporarily stored on disk or other media to make that space available for use by other programs. This is called swapping, as an area of memory can be used by multiple programs, and what that memory area contains can be swapped or exchanged on demand.

Further information: Page fault

Multitasking

Main article: Computer multitasking Main article: Process management (computing)

Multitasking refers to the running of multiple independent computer programs on the same computer; giving the appearance that it is performing the tasks at the same time. Since most computers can do at most one or two things at one time, this is generally done via time-sharing, which means that each program uses a share of the computer's time to execute.

An operating system kernel contains a piece of software called a scheduler which determines how much time each program will spend executing, and in which order execution control should be passed to programs. Control is passed to a process by the kernel, which allows the program access to the CPU and memory. Later, control is returned to the kernel through some mechanism, so that another program may be allowed to use the CPU. This so-called passing of control between the kernel and applications is called a context switch.

An early model which governed the allocation of time to programs was called cooperative multitasking. In this model, when control is passed to a program by the kernel, it may execute for as long as it wants before explicitly returning control to the kernel. This means that a malicious or malfunctioning program may not only prevent any other programs from using the CPU, but it can hang the entire system if it enters an infinite loop.

Modern operating systems extend the concepts of application preemption to device drivers and kernel code, so that the operating system has preemptive control over internal run-times as well.

The philosophy governing preemptive multitasking is that of ensuring that all programs are given regular time on the CPU. This implies that all programs must be limited in how much time they are allowed to spend on the CPU without being interrupted. To accomplish this, modern operating system kernels make use of a timed interrupt. A protected mode timer is set by the kernel which triggers a return to supervisor mode after the specified time has elapsed. (See above sections on Interrupts and Dual Mode Operation.)

On many single user operating systems cooperative multitasking is perfectly adequate, as home computers generally run a small number of well tested programs. Windows NT was the first version of Microsoft Windows which enforced preemptive multitasking, but it didn't reach the home user market until Windows XP, (since Windows NT was targeted at professionals.)

Further information: Context switch Further information: Preemptive multitasking Further information: Cooperative multitasking

Disk access and file systems

Main article: Virtual file system Filesystems allow users and programs to organize and sort files on a computer, often through the use of directories (or "folders")

Access to data stored on disks is a central feature of all operating systems. Computers store data on disks using files, which are structured in specific ways in order to allow for faster access, higher reliability, and to make better use out of the drive's available space. The specific way in which files are stored on a disk is called a file system, and enables files to have names and attributes. It also allows them to be stored in a hierarchy of directories or folders arranged in a directory tree.

Early operating systems generally supported a single type of disk drive and only one kind of file system. Early file systems were limited in their capacity, speed, and in the kinds of file names and directory structures they could use. These limitations often reflected limitations in the operating systems they were designed for, making it very difficult for an operating system to support more than one file system.

While many simpler operating systems support a limited range of options for accessing storage systems, operating systems like UNIX and GNU/Linux support a technology known as a virtual file system or VFS. An operating system like UNIX supports a wide array of storage devices, regardless of their design or file systems to be accessed through a common application programming interface (API). This makes it unnecessary for programs to have any knowledge about the device they are accessing. A VFS allows the operating system to provide programs with access to an unlimited number of devices with an infinite variety of file systems installed on them through the use of specific device drivers and file system drivers.

A connected storage device such as a hard drive is accessed through a device driver. The device driver understands the specific language of the drive and is able to translate that language into a standard language used by the operating system to access all disk drives. On UNIX, this is the language of block devices.

When the kernel has an appropriate device driver in place, it can then access the contents of the disk drive in raw format, which may contain one or more file systems. A file system driver is used to translate the commands used to access each specific file system into a standard set of commands that the operating system can use to talk to all file systems. Programs can then deal with these file systems on the basis of filenames, and directories/folders, contained within a hierarchical structure. They can create, delete, open, and close files, as well as gather various information about them, including access permissions, size, free space, and creation and modification dates.

Various differences between file systems make supporting all file systems difficult. Allowed characters in file names, case sensitivity, and the presence of various kinds of file attributes makes the implementation of a single interface for every file system a daunting task. Operating systems tend to recommend using (and so support natively) file systems specifically designed for them; for example, NTFS in Windows and ext3 and ReiserFS in GNU/Linux. However, in practice, third party drives are usually available to give support for the most widely used file systems in most general-purpose operating systems (for example, NTFS is available in GNU/Linux through NTFS-3g, and ext2/3 and ReiserFS are available in Windows through FS-driver and rfstool).

Support for file systems is highly varied among modern operating systems although there are several common file systems which almost all operating systems include support and drivers for. Operating systems vary on file system support and on the disk formats they may be installed on. Under Windows each file system is usually limited in application to certain media, for example CDs must use ISO 9660 or UDF, and as of Windows Vista, NTFS is the only file system which the operating system can be installed on. It is possible to install GNU/Linux onto many types of file systems. Unlike other operating systems, GNU/Linux and UNIX allow any file system to be used regardless of the media it is stored in, whether it is a hard drive, a disc (CD,DVD...), an USB key, or even contained within a file located on another file system.

Device drivers

Main article: Device driver

A device driver is a specific type of computer software developed to allow interaction with hardware devices. Typically this constitutes an interface for communicating with the device, through the specific computer bus or communications subsystem that the hardware is connected to, providing commands to and/or receiving data from the device, and on the other end, the requisite interfaces to the operating system and software applications. It is a specialized hardware-dependent computer program which is also operating system specific that enables another program, typically an operating system or applications software package or computer program running under the operating system kernel, to interact transparently with a hardware device, and usually provides the requisite interrupt handling necessary for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interfacing needs.

The key design goal of device drivers is abstraction. Every model of hardware (even within the same class of device) is different. Newer models also are released by manufacturers that provide more reliable or better performance and these newer models are often controlled differently. Computers and their operating systems cannot be expected to know how to control every device, both now and in the future. To solve this problem, operative systems essentially dictate how every type of device should be controlled. The function of the device driver is then to translate these operative system mandated function calls into device specific calls. In theory a new device, which is controlled in a new manner, should function correctly if a suitable driver is available. This new driver will ensure that the device appears to operate as usual from the operating system's point of view.

Under versions of Windows before Vista and versions of Linux before 2.6, all driver execution was co-operative, meaning that if a driver entered an infinite loop it would freeze the system. More recent revisions of these opearting systems incorporate kernel preemption, where the kernel interrupts the driver to give it tasks, and then separates itself from the process until it receives a response from the device driver, or gives it more tasks to do.

Networking

Main article: Computer network

Currently most operating systems support a variety of networking protocols, hardware, and applications for using them. This means that computers running dissimilar operating systems can participate in a common network for sharing resources such as computing, files, printers, and scanners using either wired or wireless connections. Networks can essentially allow a computer's operating system to access the resources of a remote computer to support the same functions as it could if those resources were connected directly to the local computer. This includes everything from simple communication, to using networked file systems or even sharing another computer's graphics or sound hardware. Some network services allow the resources of a computer to be accessed transparently, such as SSH which allows networked users direct access to a computer's command line interface.

Client/server networking involves a program on a computer somewhere which connects via a network to another computer, called a server. Servers offer (or host) various services to other network computers and users. These services are usually provided through ports or numbered access points beyond the server's network address[disambiguation needed]. Each port number is usually associated with a maximum of one running program, which is responsible for handling requests to that port. A daemon, being a user program, can in turn access the local hardware resources of that computer by passing requests to the operating system kernel.

Many operating systems support one or more vendor-specific or open networking protocols as well, for example, SNA on IBM systems, DECnet on systems from Digital Equipment Corporation, and Microsoft-specific protocols (SMB) on Windows. Specific protocols for specific tasks may also be supported such as NFS for file access. Protocols like ESound, or esd can be easily extended over the network to provide sound from local applications, on a remote system's sound hardware.

Security

Main article: Computer security

A computer being secure depends on a number of technologies working properly. A modern operating system provides access to a number of resources, which are available to software running on the system, and to external devices like networks via the kernel.

The operating system must be capable of distinguishing between requests which should be allowed to be processed, and others which should not be processed. While some systems may simply distinguish between "privileged" and "non-privileged", systems commonly have a form of requester identity, such as a user name. To establish identity there may be a process of authentication. Often a username must be quoted, and each username may have a password. Other methods of authentication, such as magnetic cards or biometric data, might be used instead. In some cases, especially connections from the network, resources may be accessed with no authentication at all (such as reading files over a network share). Also covered by the concept of requester identity is authorization; the particular services and resources accessible by the requester once logged into a system are tied to either the requester's user account or to the variously configured groups of users to which the requester belongs.

In addition to the allow/disallow model of security, a system with a high level of security will also offer auditing options. These would allow tracking of requests for access to resources (such as, "who has been reading this file?"). Internal security, or security from an already running program is only possible if all possibly harmful requests must be carried out through interrupts to the operating system kernel. If programs can directly access hardware and resources, they cannot be secured.

External security involves a request from outside the computer, such as a login at a connected console or some kind of network connection. External requests are often passed through device drivers to the operating system's kernel, where they can be passed onto applications, or carried out directly. Security of operating systems has long been a concern because of highly sensitive data held on computers, both of a commercial and military nature. The United States Government Department of Defense (DoD) created the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC) which is a standard that sets basic requirements for assessing the effectiveness of security. This became of vital importance to operating system makers, because the TCSEC was used to evaluate, classify and select computer systems being considered for the processing, storage and retrieval of sensitive or classified information.

Network services include offerings such as file sharing, print services, email, web sites, and file transfer protocols (FTP), most of which can have compromised security. At the front line of security are hardware devices known as firewalls or intrusion detection/prevention systems. At the operating system level, there are a number of software firewalls available, as well as intrusion detection/prevention systems. Most modern operating systems include a software firewall, which is enabled by default. A software firewall can be configured to allow or deny network traffic to or from a service or application running on the operating system. Therefore, one can install and be running an insecure service, such as Telnet or FTP, and not have to be threatened by a security breach because the firewall would deny all traffic trying to connect to the service on that port.

An alternative strategy, and the only sandbox strategy available in systems that do not meet the Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements, is the operating system not running user programs as native code, but instead either emulates a processor or provides a host for a p-code based system such as Java.

Internal security is especially relevant for multi-user systems; it allows each user of the system to have private files that the other users cannot tamper with or read. Internal security is also vital if auditing is to be of any use, since a program can potentially bypass the operating system, inclusive of bypassing auditing.

Real-time operating systems

Main article: real-time operating system

A real-time operating system (RTOS) is a multitasking operating system intended for applications with fixed deadlines (real-time computing). Such applications include some small embedded systems, automobile engine controllers, industrial robots, spacecraft, industrial control, and some large-scale computing systems.

An early example of a large-scale real-time operating system was Transaction Processing Facility developed by American Airlines and IBM for the Sabre Airline Reservations System.

Embedded systems that have fixed deadlines use a real-time operating system such as VxWorks, PikeOS, eCos, QNX, MontaVista Linux and RTLinux. Windows CE is a real-time operating system that shares similar APIs to desktop Windows but shares none of desktop Windows' codebase[citation needed].

Some embedded systems use operating systems such as Symbian OS, Palm OS, BSD, and GNU/Linux, although such operating systems do not support real-time computing.

Hobby development

Operating system development is one of the more involved and technical options for the computing hobbyist. A hobby operating system is classified as one with little or no support from maintenance developers. [11] Development usually begins with an existing operating system. The hobbyist is their own developer, or they interact in a relatively small and unstructured group of individuals who are all similarly situated with the same code base. Examples of a hobby operating system include Syllable and ReactOS; Minix is a classical example.

Diversity of operating systems and portability

Application software is generally written for use on a specific operating system, and sometimes even for specific hardware. When porting the application to run on another OS, the functionality required by that application may be implemented differently by that OS (the names of functions, meaning of arguments, etc.) requiring the application to be adapted, changed, or otherwise maintained.

This cost in supporting operating systems diversity can be avoided by instead writing applications against software platforms like Java, or Qt for web browsers. These abstractions have already borne the cost of adaptation to specific operating systems and their system libraries.

Another approach is for operating system vendors to adopt standards. For example, POSIX and OS abstraction layers provide commonalities that reduce porting costs.

See also

Wikiversity has learning materials about Operating Systems at: Topic:Operating systems

References

  1. ^ Stallings, p. 6.
  2. ^ Dhotre, p. 1
  3. ^ "Operating System Market Share". Net Applications. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10.
  4. ^ Hansen, pp. 4-7
  5. ^ "Global Web Stats". W3Counter, Awio Web Services. September 2009. http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
  6. ^ "Operating System Market Share". Net Applications. October 2009. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8. Retrieved November 5, 2009.
  7. ^ "Top 5 Operating Systems on Oct 09". StatCounter. October 2009. http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-200910-200910-bar. Retrieved November 5, 2009.
  8. ^ "Operating System Share by Groups for Sites in All Locations January 2009". http://news.netcraft.com/SSL-Survey/CMatch/osdv_all.
  9. ^ "Behind the IDC data: Windows still No. 1 in server operating systems". ZDNet. 2010-02-26. http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=5408.
  10. ^ Poisson, Ken. "Chronology of Personal Computer Software". Retrieved on 2008-05-07. Last checked on 2009-03-30.
  11. ^ "My OS is less hobby than yours". Osnews. December 21, 2009. http://www.osnews.com/story/22638/My_OS_Is_Less_Hobby_than_Yours. Retrieved December 21, 2009.

Dhotre, I.A. (2009). Operating Systems.. Technical Publications.

External links

Look up operating system in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Screenshots of operating systems
Operating system
General History · Timeline · List · Comparison · Usage share · Development · Advocacy
Kernel
Architectures
General Monolithic kernel · Microkernel
Subtypes Exokernel · Nanokernel · Hybrid
Components Kernel space · Server · Loadable kernel module · Device driver · User space
Process management Process · Multiprogramming · Process control block · Interrupt · Modes: (Protected mode · Supervisor mode) · Computer multitasking · Scheduling · Context switch · Cooperative multitasking · Preemptive multitasking · CPU modes · Thread
Memory management Memory protection · Segmentation · Paging · Segmentation fault · General protection fault · Bus error
Examples UNIX · OpenSolaris · GNU · Linux · BSD · Windows · Mac OS X · AmigaOS 4 · BeOS · IBM OS/2 · ReactOS · MS-DOS · more…
Miscellaneous concepts Boot loader · PXE · API · Virtual file system · Virtual tape library · Computer network · CLI · TUI · GUI · VUI · HAL
Systems and systems science
Systems categories Systems theory · Systems science · Systems scientists (Conceptual · Physical · Social)
Systems

Biological · Complex · Complex adaptive · Conceptual · Database management · Dynamical · Economical ·

Ecosystem · Formal · Global Positioning System · Human anatomy · Information systems · Legal systems of the world · Systems of measurement · Metric system · Multi-agent system · Nervous system · Nonlinearity · Operating system · Physical system · Political system · Sensory system · Social structure · Solar System · Systems art
Theoretical fields Chaos theory · Complex systems · Control theory · Cybernetics · Living systems · Sociotechnical systems theory · Systems biology · System dynamics · Systems ecology · Systems engineering · Systems psychology · Systems science · Systems theory
Systems scientists Russell L. Ackoff · William Ross Ashby · Béla H. Bánáthy · Gregory Bateson · Richard E. Bellman · Stafford Beer · Ludwig von Bertalanffy · Murray Bowen · Kenneth E. Boulding · C. West Churchman · George Dantzig · Heinz von Foerster · Jay Wright Forrester · George Klir · Edward Lorenz · Niklas Luhmann · Humberto Maturana · Margaret Mead · Donella Meadows · Mihajlo D. Mesarovic · James Grier Miller · Howard T. Odum · Talcott Parsons · Ilya Prigogine · Anatol Rapoport · Claude Shannon · Francisco Varela · Kevin Warwick · Norbert Wiener

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