An operating system(os) is the software component of a computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer. A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. The operating system (OS) acts as a host for application programs that are run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating system is to handle the details of the operation of the hardware. Hardware is a general term that refers to the physical artifacts of a Technology. This relieves application programs from having to manage these details and makes it easier to write applications. Almost all computers, including hand-held computers, desktop computers, supercomputers, and even modern video game consoles, use an operating system of some type. See also Computer systems architecture. In Computer engineering, computer architecture is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of a Computer system

Operating systems offer a number of services to application programs and users. Applications access these services through application programming interfaces (APIs) or system calls. In Computing, a system call is the mechanism used by an application program to request service from the Kernel. By invoking these interfaces, the application can request a service from the operating system, pass parameters, and receive the results of the operation. Users may also interact with the operating system by typing commands or using a graphical user interface (GUI, commonly pronounced “guoey”). For hand-held and desktop computers, the GUI is generally considered part of the operating system. For large multiuser systems, the GUI is generally implemented as an application program that runs outside the operating system. See also Computer programming; Human-computer interaction. Human–computer interaction or HCI is the study of interaction between people ( users and Computers It is often regarded as the intersection of

Common contemporary operating systems include Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, AmigaOS, Linux and Solaris. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently AmigaOS is the default native Operating system of the Amiga personal computer Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Solaris is a Unix -based Operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS. Microsoft Windows has a significant majority of market share in the desktop and notebook computer markets, while the server and embedded device markets are split amongst several operating systems. ^{[1] [2]}

Contents 1 Technology 1.1 Boot-strapping 1.2 Program execution 1.3 Interrupts 1.4 Protected mode and supervisor mode 1.5 Memory management 1.6 Swapping Virtual Memory 1.7 Methods of Multitasking 1.8 Disk access and file systems 1.9 Device drivers 1.10 Networking 2 Security 3 File system support in modern operating systems 3.1 Under Linux and UNIX 3.2 Under Microsoft Windows 3.3 Under Mac OS 3.4 Special Purpose File Systems 3.5 Journalized File Systems 4 Graphical user interfaces 5 History 6 Mainframes 7 Microcomputers 8 Examples 8.1 Microsoft Windows 8.2 Plan 9 8.3 Unix and Unix-like operating systems 8.4 Mac OS X 8.5 Real-time operating systems 8.6 Embedded systems 8.7 Hobby operating system development 8.8 Other 9 References 10 See also 11 External links

Technology

An operating system is a collection of technologies which are designed to allow the computer to perform certain functions. These technologies may or may not be present in every operating system, and there are often differences in how they are implemented. However as stated above most modern operating systems are derived from common design ancestors, and are therefore basically similar.

Boot-strapping

In most cases, the operating system is not the first code to run on the computer at startup (boot) time. The initial code executing on the computer is usually loaded from firmware, which is stored in read only memory (ROM). In Computing, firmware is a computer program that is Embedded in a hardware device for example a Microcontroller. This is sometimes called the BIOS or boot ROM. In Computing, the BIOS (ˈbaɪoʊs

The firmware loads and executes code located on a removable disk or hard drive, and contained within the first sector of the drive, referred to as the boot sector. The code stored on the boot sector is called the boot loader, and is responsible for loading the operating system's kernel from disk and starting it running. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS

Some simple boot loaders are designed to locate one specific operating system and load it, although many modern ones have the capacity to allow the user to choose from a number of operating systems.

Program execution

Main article: Process (computing)

An operating system's most basic function is to support the running of programs by the users. In computing a process is an instance of a Computer program that is being sequentially executed by a computer system that has the ability to run several computer On a multiprogramming operating system, running programs are commonly referred to as processes. In computing Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In computing a process is an instance of a Computer program that is being sequentially executed by a computer system that has the ability to run several computer Process management refers to the facilities provided by the operating system to support the creation, execution, and destruction of processes, and to facilitate various interactions, and limit others. Process management is an integral part of any modern day Operating system (OS

The operating system's kernel in conjunction with underlying hardware must support this functionality. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS

Executing a program involves the creation of a process by the operating system. The kernel creates a process by setting aside or allocating some memory, loading program code from a disk or another part of memory into the newly allocated space, and starting it running. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS

Operating system kernels store various information about running processes. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS This information might include:

• A unique identifier, called a process identifier (PID). In Computing, the process identifier (normally referred to as the process ID or just PID) is a number used by some Operating system kernels
• A list of memory the program is using, or is allowed to access.
• The PID of the program which requested its execution, or the parent process ID (PPID).
• The filename and/or path from which the program was loaded.
• A register file, containing the last values of all CPU registers. In Computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of storage available on the CPU whose contents can be accessed more quickly than storage
• A program counter, indicating the position in the program.

Interrupts

Main article: interrupt

Interrupts are central to operating systems as they allow the operating system to deal with the unexpected activities of running programs and the world outside the computer. In Computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous signal from hardware indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change Interrupt-based programming is one of the most basic forms of time-sharing, being directly supported by most CPUs. In Computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous signal from hardware indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change Interrupts provide a computer with a way of automatically running specific code in response to events. In Computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous signal from hardware indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change 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, and its registers and program counter are saved. This is analogous to placing a bookmark in a book when someone is interrupted by a phone call. This task requires no operating system as such, but only that the interrupt be configured at an earlier time.

In modern operating systems, interrupts are handled by the operating system's kernel. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS 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, or ignoring it. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS The processing of hardware interrupts is a task that is usually delegated to software called device drivers, which may be either part of the operating system's kernel, part of another program, or both. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS Device drivers may then relay information to a running program by various means.

A program may also trigger an interrupt to the operating system, which are very similar in function. 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. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS The kernel may then process the request which may contain instructions to be passed onto hardware, or to a device driver. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS When a program wishes to allocate more memory, launch or communicate with another program, or signal that it no longer needs the CPU, it does so through interrupts.

Protected mode and supervisor mode

Main article: Protected mode

Main article: Supervisor mode

Modern CPUs support something called dual mode operation. In computing protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of X86 -compatible Central processing units (CPU CPUs with this capability use two modes: protected mode and supervisor mode, which allow certain CPU functions to be controlled and affected only by the operating system kernel. In computing protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of X86 -compatible Central processing units (CPU In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS Here, protected mode does not refer specifically to the 80286 (Intel's x86 16-bit microprocessor) CPU feature, although its protected mode is very similar to it. The Intel 286, introduced on February 1, 1982, (originally named 80286, and also called iAPX 286 in the programmer's manual CPUs might have other modes similar to 80286 protected mode as well, such as the virtual 8086 mode of the 80386 (Intel's x86 32-bit microprocessor or i386). In the 80386 Microprocessor and later Virtual 8086 mode, also called virtual real mode or VM86, allows the execution of Real mode

However, the term is used here more generally in operating system theory to refer to all modes which limit the capabilities of programs running in that mode, providing things like virtual memory addressing and limiting access to hardware in a manner determined by a program running in supervisor mode. Similar modes have existed in supercomputers, minicomputers, and mainframes as they are essential to fully supporting UNIX-like multi-user operating systems.

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. In Computing, the BIOS (ˈbaɪoʊs In Computing, booting ( booting up) is a bootstrapping process that starts Operating systems when the user turns on a Computer system However when the operating system passes control to another program, it can place the CPU into protected mode. In computing protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of X86 -compatible Central processing units (CPU

In protected mode, programs may have access to a more limited set of the CPU's instructions. In computing protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of X86 -compatible Central processing units (CPU A user program may leave protected mode only by triggering an interrupt, causing control to be passed back to the kernel. In computing protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of X86 -compatible Central processing units (CPU In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS 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.

Memory management

Main article: memory protection

Among other things, a multiprogramming operating system kernel must be responsible for managing all system memory which is currently in use by programs. Memory protection is a way to control memory usage on a computer and is core to virtually every Operating system. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS 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. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS 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. Memory protection is a way to control memory usage on a computer and is core to virtually every Operating system. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS Various methods of memory protection exist, including memory segmentation, and paging. In computing memory segmentation is one of the most common ways to achieve Memory protection; another common one is Paging. In Computer Operating systems that have their Main memory divided into pages, paging (sometimes called swapping) is a transfer All methods require some level of hardware support (such as the 80286 MMU) which doesn't exist in all computers. The Intel 286, introduced on February 1, 1982, (originally named 80286, and also called iAPX 286 in the programmer's manual

In both segmentation and paging, certain protected mode registers specify to the CPU what memory address it should allow a running program to access. In computing protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of X86 -compatible Central processing units (CPU Attempts to access other addresses will trigger an interrupt which will cause the CPU to re-enter supervisor mode, placing the kernel in charge. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS This is called a segmentation violation or Seg-V for short, and since it is usually a sign of a misbehaving program, the kernel will generally kill the offending program, and report the error. A segmentation fault (often shortened to segfault) is a particular error condition that can occur during the operation of Computer software. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS

Windows 3. 1-Me had some level of memory protection, but programs could easily circumvent the need to use it. Under Windows 9x all MS-DOS applications ran in supervisor mode, giving them almost unlimited control over the computer. A general protection fault would be produced indicating a segmentation violation had occurred, however the system would often crash anyway. A General Protection Fault ( GPF) in the Intel X86 and AMD X86-64 architectures and other unrelated architectures is a

Swapping Virtual Memory

The use of virtual memory addressing (such as paging or segmentation) means that kernel can choose which 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 exceed its allocated memory. (See section on memory management. ) Under UNIX this kind of interrupt is referred to as a page fault. In Computer storage technology a page is a fixed-length block of memory that is used as a unit of transfer between Physical memory and external storage like a

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, application 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 use by multiple programs, and what that memory area contains can be swapped or exchanged on demand. In Computer Operating systems that have their Main memory divided into pages, paging (sometimes called swapping) is a transfer

Further information: Page fault

Methods of 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. In Computer storage technology a page is a fixed-length block of memory that is used as a unit of transfer between Physical memory and external storage like a In computing Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. Process management is an integral part of any modern day Operating system (OS 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. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS Scheduling is a key concept in Computer multitasking and Multiprocessing Operating system design and in Real-time operating system design Control is passed to a process by the kernel, which allows the program access the CPU and memory. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS At a later time control is returned to the kernel through some mechanism, so that another program may be allowed to use the CPU. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS This so-called passing of control between the kernel and applications is called a context switch. A context switch is the Computing process of storing and restoring the state ( context) of a CPU such that multiple processes can share

An early model which governed the allocation of time to programs was called cooperative multitasking. In computing Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. 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. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS This means that a malfunctioning program may prevent any other programs from using the CPU.

The philosophy governing preemptive multitasking is that of ensuring that all programs are given regular time on the CPU. Pre-emption or preemption in Computing is the act of temporarily interrupting a task being carried out by a computer system, without requiring 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. In computing protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of X86 -compatible Central processing units (CPU (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. Windows NT is a family of Operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993 Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and )

Very early UNIX did not provide preemptive multitasking, as it was not supported on the hardware. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer As it was designed from minicomputer concepts for multiple users accessing the system via remote terminals, it was quickly migrated to hardware which did allow preemptive multitasking, and was adapted support these features.

Further information: Context switch

Further information: Preemptive multitasking

Further information: Cooperative multitasking

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. A context switch is the Computing process of storing and restoring the state ( context) of a CPU such that multiple processes can share Pre-emption or preemption in Computing is the act of temporarily interrupting a task being carried out by a computer system, without requiring In computing Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. Under Windows Vista, the introduction of the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) accomplishes this for display drivers, and in Linux, the preemptable kernel model introduced in version 2. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Windows Display Driver Model ( WDDM, also WVDDM) is the Graphic driver architecture for Video card drivers running Microsoft Windows 6 allows all device drives and some other parts of kernel code to take advantage of preemptive multi-tasking.

Under Windows and prior to Windows Vista and Linux prior to version 2. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks 6 all driver execution was co-operative, meaning that if a driver entered an infinite loop it would freeze the system.

Disk access and file systems

Main article: Virtual file system

Access to files stored on disks is a central feature of all operating systems. A virtual file system (VFS or virtual filesystem switch is an abstraction layer on top of a more concrete File system. 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. A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device A computer file is a block of Arbitrary Information, or resource for storing information which is available to a Computer program and is usually The specific way files are stored on a disk is called a file system, and enables files to have names and attributes. In Computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing Computer files and the data they contain to make It also allows them to be stored in a hierarchy of directories or folders arranged in a directory tree. In Computing, a directory, catalog, folder or drawer is an entity in a File system, which contains a group of files and/or other directories

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, more modern operating systems like UNIX and Linux support a technology known as a virtual file system or VFS. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks A virtual file system (VFS or virtual filesystem switch is an abstraction layer on top of a more concrete File system. A modern 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). In Computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing Computer files and the data they contain to make 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. In computing a device driver or software driver is a Computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a Hardware device

A connected storage device such as a hard drive will be accessed through a device driver. A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device In computing a device driver or software driver is a Computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a Hardware device 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 gathering 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. Text sometimes exhibits case sensitivity; that is words can differ in meaning based on differing use of uppercase and lowercase letters A file attribute is Metadata that describes or is associated with a Computer file. While UNIX and Linux systems generally have support for a wide variety of file systems, proprietary operating systems such a Microsoft Windows tend to limit the user to using a single file system for each task. For example the windows operating system can only be installed on NTFS, and CDs and DVDs can only be recorded using UDF or ISO 9660

See later section for more about file systems. ISO 9660 a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO defines a File system for CD-ROM media

Device drivers

Main article: Device driver

A device driver is a specific type of computer software developed to allow interaction with hardware devices. In computing a device driver or software driver is a Computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a Hardware device In computing a device driver or software driver is a Computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a Hardware device 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. --> Abstraction is the process or result of generalization by reducing the information 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, OSes essentially dictate how every type of device should be controlled. The function of the device driver is then to translate these OS 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 systems' point of view for any person.

Networking

Main article: Computer network

Currently most operating systems support a variety of networking protocols, hardware, and applications for using them. A computer network is a group of interconnected Computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics 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. A computer network is a group of interconnected Computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics Remote procedure call ( RPC) is an Inter-process communication technology that allows a Computer program to cause a Subroutine or procedure to 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 program on a computer somewhere which connects via a network to another computer, called a server. Servers, usually running UNIX or Linux, 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. 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 on Windows. Systems Network Architecture ( SNA) is IBM 's proprietary networking architecture created in 1974 International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology DECnet is a suite of Network protocols created by Digital Equipment Corporation, originally released in 1975 in order to connect two PDP-11 Minicomputers Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the Computer industry Specific protocols for specific tasks may also be supported such as NFS for file access. Network File System (NFS is a Network file system protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1983 allowing a user on a client Computer to 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. This article describes how security can be achieved through design and engineering 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 requesters 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.

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. Microsoft Windows has been heavily criticized for many years for Window's almost total inability to protect one running program from another, however since Windows isn't generally used as a server it has been considered less of a problem. In recent years, Microsoft has added limited user accounts, and more secure logins. However most people still operate their computers using Administrator accounts, which negates any possible internal security improvements brought about by these changes.

Linux and UNIX both have two tier security, which limits any system-wide changes to the root user, a special user account on all UNIX-like systems. While the root user has unlimited permission to affect system changes, programs as a regular user are limited only in where they can save files, and what hardware they can access. This limits the damage that a regular user can do to the computer while still providing them with plenty of freedom to do everything but affect system-wide changes. The user's settings are stored in an area of the computer's file system called the user's home directory, which is also provided as a location where the user may store their work, similar to My Documents on a windows system. Should a user have to install software or make system-wide changes, they must enter the root password for the computer, which allows them to launch certain programs as the root user.

Though regular user accounts on Unix-like operating systems provide plenty of freedom for day to day activities, this requiring of passwords for various operations can be frustrating for some users. As an example, lets say a person who is used to a Windows environment is being exposed to Ubuntu Linux for the first time. In this situation, they may question why so many operations in this version of Linux require a root password. In their Windows environment they were allowed to change, delete, create, and rename files anywhere on their system. Installing new software, or changing system settings required no special permissions because they logged on automatically as the administrator. This is however considered to be a security risk, as it makes it extremely easy to accidentally delete important files, and for viruses to infect the operating system. With Windows Vista, Microsoft attempted to make improvements in this area of security. Whether they were successful is a matter of debate. Many feel that Vista requires verification for many activities that would rarely or never compromise the system.

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. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The federal government of the United States is the central United States Governmental body established by the United States Constitution. The United States Department of Defense ( DOD or DoD) is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria ( TCSEC) is a United States Government Department of Defense (DoD standard that sets basic requirements 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. A firewall is an integrated collection of security measures designed to prevent unauthorized electronic access to a networked computer system 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. This article is about the Computer security mechanism For the Wikipedia feature where newcomers can experiment with editing or established editors can experiment with The Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements are a set of sufficient conditions for a computer architecture to efficiently support system Virtualization. An emulator duplicates (provides an emulation of the functions of one System using a different system so that the second system behaves like (and appears to In Computer programming, a p-code machine or pseudo-code machine is a specification of a CPU whose instructions are expected to be executed

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.

File system support in modern operating systems

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.

Under Linux and UNIX

Many Linux distributions support some or all of ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, Reiser4, GFS, GFS2, OCFS, OCFS2, and NILFS. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks The ext2 or second extended file system is a File system for the Linux kernel. The ext3 or third extended filesystem is a journaled file system that is commonly used by the Linux Operating system. ReiserFS is a general-purpose journaled Computer File system designed and implemented by a team at Namesys led by Hans Reiser Reiser4, named after creator Hans Reiser, is a Computer File system, a new "from scratch" successor to the ReiserFS file system In Computing, the Global File System ( GFS) is a Shared disk file system for Linux Computer clusters GFS differs from Distributed In Computing, the Global File System ( GFS) is a Shared disk file system for Linux Computer clusters GFS differs from Distributed OCFS stands for Oracle Cluster File System. It is a shared storage File system developed by Oracle Corporation and released under the GNU General Public OCFS stands for Oracle Cluster File System. It is a shared storage File system developed by Oracle Corporation and released under the GNU General Public NILFS ( New Implementation of a Log-structured File System or NIL File System) is a Log-structured file system implementation for Linux. The ext file systems, namely ext2 and ext3 are based on the original Linux file system. Others have been developed by companies to meet their specific needs, hobbyists, or adapted from UNIX, Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems. Linux has full support for XFS and JFS, along with FAT (the MS-DOS file system), and HFS which is the primary file system for the Macintosh. XFS is a high-performance Journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, originally for their IRIX Operating system and later ported to Journaled File System or JFS is a 64-bit Journaling filesystem created by IBM. Templateinfobox filesystem whilst covering all 3 file systems please make any style changes to both at the same time MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft.

In recent years support for Microsoft Windows NT's NTFS file system has appeared in Linux, and is now comparable to the support available for other native UNIX file systems. Windows NT is a family of Operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993 NTFS (New Technology File System Is the standard File system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer ISO 9660, and UDF are supported which are standard file systems used on CDs, DVDs, and BluRay discs. ISO 9660 a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO defines a File system for CD-ROM media The Universal Disk Format ( UDF) is a format specification of a File system for storing files on optical media It is possible to install Linux on the majority of these file systems. Unlike other operating systems Linux and UNIX allow any file system to be used regardless of the media it is stored on, whether it is a hard drive CD or DVD, or even a contained within a file located on an another file system.

Under Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows presently supports NTFS and FAT file systems, along with network file systems shared from other computers, and the ISO 9660 and UDF filesystems used for CDs, DVDs, and other optical discs such as BluRay. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. NTFS (New Technology File System Is the standard File system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Templateinfobox filesystem whilst covering all 3 file systems please make any style changes to both at the same time A network file system is any computer File system that supports sharing of files, printers and other resources as Persistent storage over ISO 9660 a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO defines a File system for CD-ROM media A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is 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. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops NTFS (New Technology File System Is the standard File system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows The NTFS file system is the most efficient and reliable of the Windows file systems, comparing closely in performance to Linux's XFS. XFS is a high-performance Journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, originally for their IRIX Operating system and later ported to Details of its design are not known. Windows Embedded CE 6.0 introduced ExFAT, a file system more suitable for flash drives. Windows Embedded CE 60 (codenamed "Yamazaki") is the sixth major release of Windows Embedded Operating System targeted to enterprise specific tools such as industrial exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table aka FAT64 is a proprietary File system suited especially for Flash drives introduced by Microsoft for embedded devices

Under Mac OS

Mac OS X supports HFS+ with journaling as its primary file system. Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently HFS Plus or HFS+ is a File system developed by Apple Inc to replace their Hierarchical File System (HFS as the primary file system used It is derived from the Hierarchical File System of the earlier Mac OS. Hierarchical File System ( HFS) is a File system developed by Apple Inc Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc Mac OS X has facilities to read and write FAT, NTFS, UDF, and other file systems, but cannot be installed to them. Due to its UNIX heritage Mac OS X now supports virtually all the file systems supported by the UNIX VFS. Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently

Special Purpose File Systems

FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy discs, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of their relative simplicity. A floppy disk is an increasingly Obsolete data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin flexible ("floppy" Magnetic storage medium encased Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed Many compact digital still cameras can record Sound and moving Video as well as still Photograph. Performance of FAT compares poorly to most other file systems as it uses overly simplistic data structures, making file operations time-consuming, and makes poor use of disk space in situations where many small files are present. ISO 9660 and Universal Disk Format are two common formats that target Compact Discs and DVDs. ISO 9660 a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO defines a File system for CD-ROM media The Universal Disk Format ( UDF) is a format specification of a File system for storing files on optical media A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is Mount Rainier is a newer extension to UDF supported by Linux 2. Mount Rainier ( MRW) is a format for writable Optical discs which provides the Packet writing and defect management 6 kernels and Windows Vista that facilitates rewriting to DVDs in the same fashion as has been possible with floppy disks.

Journalized File Systems

File systems may provide journaling, which provides safe recovery in the event of a system crash. A journaling file system is a File system that logs changes to a journal (usually a circular log in a dedicated area before committing them to the main file A journaled file system writes some information twice: first to the journal, which is a log of file system operations, then to its proper place in the ordinary file system. Journaling is handled by the file system driver, and keeps track of each operation taking place that changes the contents of the disk. In the event of a crash, the system can recover to a consistent state by replaying a portion of the journal. Many UNIX file systems provide journaling including ReiserFS, JFS, and Ext3. ReiserFS is a general-purpose journaled Computer File system designed and implemented by a team at Namesys led by Hans Reiser The ext3 or third extended filesystem is a journaled file system that is commonly used by the Linux Operating system.

In contrast, non-journaled file systems typically need to be examined in their entirety by a utility such as fsck or chkdsk for any inconsistencies after an unclean shutdown. The system utility fsck (for " f ile s ystem c hec' k' " or " f ile s ystem c onsistency chec' CHKDSK (short for Checkdisk) is a command on computers running DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows operating systems that displays the Soft updates is an alternative to journaling that avoids the redundant writes by carefully ordering the update operations. In Computer File systems soft updates are an approach to maintaining disk integrity after a crash or power outage Log-structured file systems and ZFS also differ from traditional journaled file systems in that they avoid inconsistencies by always writing new copies of the data, eschewing in-place updates. In Computing, ZFS is a File system designed by Sun Microsystems for the Solaris Operating System.

Graphical user interfaces

Most 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. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS

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. A context switch is the Computing process of storing and restoring the state ( context) of a CPU such that multiple processes can share Other operating systems are modular, separating the graphics subsystem from the kernel and the Operating System. Modular programming is a software design technique that increases the extent to which software is composed from separate parts called modules In the 1980s UNIX, VMS and many others had operating systems that were built this way. 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 Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Windows NT 40 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented Operating system designed to work with either Uniprocessor or symmetric Windows Server 2003 (also referred to as Win2K3 is a server Operating system produced by Microsoft. Windows 9x had very little distinction between the interface and the kernel. Windows 9x is the family of Microsoft Windows Operating systems that comprises the hybrid 16/32-bit Windows versions Windows 95, Windows 98

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, Linux, Minix) systems. A gnome is a Mythical creature characterized by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle KDE ( K Desktop Environment) (ˌkeɪdiːˈiː is a Free software project which aims to be a powerful system for an easy-to-use Desktop environment. A Unix-like (sometimes shortened to *nix) Operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system while not necessarily conforming MINIX is a Unix-like computer Operating system based on a Microkernel architecture. 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. In Windows 95 and later versions of Microsoft Windows, the Windows shell is by default explorer In Computing, Windows Shell is the most visible aspect of the Microsoft Windows line of Operating systems The shell is the container inside of which the

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. The Common Open Software Environment or COSE was an initiative formed in March 1993 by the major Unix vendors of the time to create open unified Operating The Common Desktop Environment ( CDE) a Graphical Desktop environment for Unix, leverages the Motif Widget toolkit Prior to open source-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 2001.

History

Main article: History of operating systems

• The first computers did not have operating systems. The history of computer Operating systems recapitulates to a degree the recent History of computer hardware. By the early 1960s, commercial computer vendors were supplying quite extensive tools for streamlining the development, scheduling, and execution of jobs on batch processing systems. Batch processing is execution of a series of programs (" jobs quot on a Computer without human interaction Examples were produced by UNIVAC and Control Data Corporation, amongst others. UNIVAC serves as the catch-all name for the American manufacturers of the lines of mainframe computers by that name which through mergers and acquisitions underwent Control Data Corporation (CDC, was one of the pioneering Supercomputer firms

• MS-DOS provided many operating system like features, such as disk access. MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. However many DOS programs bypassed it entirely and ran directly on hardware.

• The operating systems originally deployed on mainframes, and, much later, the original microcomputer operating systems, only supported one program at a time, requiring only a very basic scheduler. Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as Big Iron) are Computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications typically bulk data microcomputer is a Computer with a Microprocessor as its Central processing unit. Each program was in complete control of the machine while it was running. Multitasking (timesharing) first came to mainframes in the 1960s.

• In 1969-70, UNIX first appeared on the PDP-7 and later the PDP-11. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer The DEC PDP-7 is a Minicomputer produced by Digital Equipment Corporation. The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit Minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corp It soon became capable of providing cross-platform time sharing using preemptive multitasking, advanced memory management, memory protection, and a host of other advanced features. UNIX soon gained popularity as an operating system for mainframes and minicomputers alike. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer

• IBM microcomputers, including the IBM PC and the IBM PC XT could run Microsoft Xenix, a UNIX-like operating system from the early 1980s. The IBM Personal Computer XT, often shortened to the IBM XT or simply XT, was IBM's successor to the original IBM PC. Xenix is a version of the Unix Operating system, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s Xenix was heavily marketed by Microsoft as a multi-user alternative to its single user MS-DOS operating system. Xenix is a version of the Unix Operating system, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. The CPUs of these personal computer, could not facilitate kernel memory protection or provide dual mode operation, so Microsoft Xenix relied on cooperative multitasking and had no protected memory. Xenix is a version of the Unix Operating system, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s

• The 80286-based IBM PC AT was the first computer technically capable of using dual mode operation, and providing memory protection. The Intel 286, introduced on February 1, 1982, (originally named 80286, and also called iAPX 286 in the programmer's manual The IBM Personal Computer/AT, more commonly known as the IBM AT and also sometimes called the PC AT or PC/AT, was IBM 's second-generation

• Classic Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows 1. Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. 0-Me supported only cooperative multitasking, and were very limited in their abilities to take advantage of protected memory. In computing Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. Application programs running on these operating systems must yield CPU time to the scheduler when they are not using it, either by default, or by calling a function.

• Windows NT's underlying operating system kernel which was a designed by essentially the same team as Digital Equipment Corporation's VMS, a UNIX-like operating system which provided protected mode operation for all user programs, kernel memory protection, preemptive multi-tasking, virtual file system support, and a host of other features. Windows NT is a family of Operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993 Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the Computer industry Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer

• Classic AmigaOS and Windows 1. AmigaOS is the default native Operating system of the Amiga personal computer 0-Me did not properly track resources allocated by processes at runtime. If a process had to be terminated, the resources might not be freed up for new programs until the machine was restarted.

• The AmigaOS did have preemptive multitasking.

Mainframes

Through the 1960s, many major features were pioneered in the field of operating systems. The development of the IBM System/360 produced a family of mainframe computers available in widely differing capacities and price points, for which a single operating system OS/360 was planned (rather than developing ad-hoc programs for every individual model). International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology The IBM System/360 ( S/360) is a Mainframe computer system family announced by IBM on April 7, 1964. Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as Big Iron) are Computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications typically bulk data See also History of IBM mainframe operating systems OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, was a group of Batch processing This concept of a single OS spanning an entire product line was crucial for the success of System/360 and, in fact, IBM's current mainframe operating systems are distant descendants of this original system; applications written for the OS/360 can still be run on modern machines. 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 In the mid-70's, the MVS, the descendant of OS/360 offered the first implementation of using RAM as a transparent cache for disk resident data. In Computer science, a cache (kæʃ like "cash") is a collection of data duplicating original

OS/360 also pioneered a number of concepts that, in some cases, are still not seen outside of the mainframe arena. For instance, in OS/360, when a program is started, the operating system keeps track of all of the system resources that are used including storage, locks, data files, and so on. When the process is terminated for any reason, all of these resources are re-claimed by the operating system. An alternative CP-67 system started a whole line of operating systems focused on the concept of virtual machines. See also CP/CMS CP-67 was the control program portion of CP/CMS, a Virtual machine operating system developed for the IBM System/360-67 In Computer science, a virtual machine (VM is a Software implementation of a machine (computer that executes programs like a real machine

Control Data Corporation developed the SCOPE operating system in the 1960s, for batch processing. Control Data Corporation (CDC, was one of the pioneering Supercomputer firms SCOPE, an acronym for S upervisory C ontrol O f P rogram E xecution was the name used by the Control Data Corporation for a 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 Burroughs Corporation began in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company in St The Burroughs large systems were the largest of three series of Burroughs Corporation mainframe computers The MCP (Master Control Program is the proprietary Operating system of the Burroughs large systems including the Unisys Clearpath/MCP 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. In Computer science, a stack machine is a Model of computation in which the computer's memory takes the form of one or more stacks The term also refers ESPOL (short for E xecutive S ystems P rogramming O riented L anguage was a Compiler for an ALGOL 60 superset that Algol (β Per / Beta Persei known colloquially as the Demon Star, is a bright Star in the Constellation Perseus. MCP also introduced many other ground-breaking innovations, such as being the first commercial implementation of virtual memory. Virtual memory is a Computer system technique which gives an application program the impression that it has contiguous working memory while in fact it may be physically MCP is still in use today in the Unisys ClearPath/MCP line of computers. Unisys Corporation ( based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a global provider of information technology

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). GCOS /ˈdʒiˌkos/ ( G eneral C omprehensive O perating S ystem is a family of Operating systems oriented toward Mainframe

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. The TOPS-10 System was a computer Operating system from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC for the PDP-10 released in 1964, the resulting systems The TOPS-20 Operating system by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC was the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10. 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:

• Burroughs MCP -- B5000,1961 to Unisys Clearpath/MCP, present. The MCP (Master Control Program is the proprietary Operating system of the Burroughs large systems including the Unisys Clearpath/MCP The Burroughs large systems were the largest of three series of Burroughs Corporation mainframe computers Unisys Corporation ( based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a global provider of information technology
• IBM OS/360 -- IBM System/360, 1966 to IBM z/OS, present. See also History of IBM mainframe operating systems OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, was a group of Batch processing The IBM System/360 ( S/360) is a Mainframe computer system family announced by IBM on April 7, 1964. z/OS is a 64-bit Operating system for Mainframe computers, created by IBM.
• IBM CP-67 -- IBM System/360, 1967 to IBM z/VM, present. See also CP/CMS CP-67 was the control program portion of CP/CMS, a Virtual machine operating system developed for the IBM System/360-67 The IBM System/360 ( S/360) is a Mainframe computer system family announced by IBM on April 7, 1964. See also VM (operating system z/VM is the current version in IBM's VM family of Virtual machine Operating systems.
• UNIVAC EXEC 8 -- UNIVAC 1108, 1964, to Unisys Clearpath IX, present. EXEC 8 (sometimes referred to as EXEC VIII) was UNIVAC 's Operating system developed for the UNIVAC 1108 in 1964. The UNIVAC 1108 was the second member of Sperry Rand 's UNIVAC 1100 series of computers introduced in 1964. Unisys Corporation ( based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a global provider of information technology

Microcomputers

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. microcomputer is a Computer with a Microprocessor as its Central processing unit. 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 one of the world's most profitable companies. CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers is an Operating system originally created for Intel 8080 / 85 based Microcomputers by Gary Kildall MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. IBM PC-DOS is a DOS operating system for the IBM Personal Computer, sold throughout the 1980s and 1990s Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer 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 the an innovative Graphical User Interface (GUI) to the Mac OS. Apple Inc, ( formerly Apple Computer Inc, is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing Consumer electronics Macintosh, commonly nicknamed Mac is a Brand name which covers several lines of Personal computers designed developed and marketed by Apple Inc Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc

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. The range of Integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4294967295 or −2147483648 through 2147483647 using Two's complement encoding In Computer Operating systems that have their Main memory divided into pages, paging (sometimes called swapping) is a transfer In computing Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. A minicomputer (colloquially mini) is a class of multi-user Computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum in between the largest Multi-user Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as Big Iron) are Computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications typically bulk data Microsoft's responded to this progress by hiring Dave Cutler, who had developed the VMS operating system for Digital Equipment Corporation. David Neil Cutler Sr (born March 13, 1942) is a noted American Software engineer, designer and developer Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the Computer industry He would lead the development of the Windows NT operating system, which continues to serve as the basis for Microsoft's operating systems line. Windows NT is a family of Operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993 Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Inc., started NeXT Computer Inc. Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24 1955 is the Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc and former CEO of Pixar Animation Apple Inc, ( formerly Apple Computer Inc, is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing Consumer electronics NeXT Computer Inc (later NeXT Software Inc) was an American Computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California that , which developed the Unix-like NEXTSTEP operating system. A Unix-like (sometimes shortened to *nix) Operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system while not necessarily conforming Nextstep was the original object-oriented, multitasking Operating system that NeXT Computer developed to run on its range of proprietary computers NEXTSTEP would later be acquired by Apple Inc. and used, along with code from FreeBSD as the core of Mac OS X. Apple Inc, ( formerly Apple Computer Inc, is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing Consumer electronics FreeBSD is a Unix-like free Operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD branch through

Minix, an academic teaching tool which could be run on early PCs, would inspire another reimplementation of Unix, called Linux. MINIX is a Unix-like computer Operating system based on a Microkernel architecture. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Started by computer student Linus Torvalds with cooperation from volunteers over the internet, developed a kernel which was combined with the tools from the GNU Project. Linus Benedict Torvalds ( ˈtuːrvalds born December 28 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer The GNU Project is a Free software, Mass collaboration project announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. 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. See also Software portability In Computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created FreeBSD is a Unix-like free Operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD branch through NetBSD is a freely redistributable Open source version of the Unix -derivative Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD Computer Operating OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer Operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD a Unix derivative developed at the

Examples

Microsoft Windows

The Microsoft Windows family of operating systems originated as an add-on to the older MS-DOS operating system for the IBM PC. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. MS-DOS (short for M icro' s' oft D isk O perating S ystem is an Operating system commercialized by Microsoft. Modern versions are based on the newer Windows NT kernel that was originally intended for OS/2 and borrowed from VMS. Windows NT is a family of Operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993 OS/2 is a computer Operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively Windows runs on x86, x86-64 and Itanium processors. See also X86 assembly language The generic term x86 refers to the most commercially successful Instruction set architecture in the history of Personal x86-64 is a Superset of the x86 instruction set architecture. Itanium is the brand name for 64-bit Intel Microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64) Earlier versions also ran on the DEC Alpha, MIPS, Fairchild (later Intergraph) Clipper and PowerPC architectures (some work was done to port it to the SPARC architecture). Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, was a 64-bit Reduced instruction set computer (RISC Instruction set architecture (ISA developed MIPS (originally an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) is a RISC microprocessor architecture developed by MIPS Technologies Present day Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc is a spin-off company resulting from reconstitution of assets in National Semiconductor Intergraph Corporation is a software company with 3879 employees worldwide (2008 The Clipper architecture is a 32-bit RISC -like Instruction set architecture designed by Fairchild Semiconductor. PowerPC is a RISC Instruction set architecture created by the 1991 Apple – IBM – Motorola alliance known as AIM SPARC (from Scalable Processor Architecture is a RISC Microprocessor Instruction set architecture originally

As of June 2008, Microsoft Windows holds a large amount of the worldwide desktop market share. Market share, in Strategic management and Marketing, is the percentage or proportion of the total available Market or Market segment that is Windows is also used on servers, supporting applications such as web servers and database servers. The term web server can mean one of two things A Computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from web clients which are A database management system ( DBMS) is Computer software designed for the purpose of managing Databases DBMSes may use any of a variety of Data models 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. Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC is a non-profit organization founded in 1988 to define Transaction processing and Database benchmarks and to disseminate

The most widely used version of the Microsoft Windows family is Windows XP, released on October 25, 2001. Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and Events 1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar.

In November 2006, after more than five years of development work, Microsoft released Windows Vista, a major new operating system version of Microsoft Windows family which contains a large number of new features and architectural changes. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Windows Vista (formerly codenamed Longhorn) has many new features compared with previous Microsoft Windows versions covering most aspects of the operating Chief amongst these are a new user interface and visual style called Windows Aero, a number of new security features such as User Account Control, and few new multimedia applications such as Windows DVD Maker. Windows Aero is the Graphical user interface and the default theme in most editions of Windows Vista, an Operating system released by Microsoft User Account Control ( UAC) is a technology and security infrastructure introduced with Microsoft 's Windows Vista Operating system. Windows DVD Maker is an application included in premium editions (Home Premium and Ultimate of Windows Vista that is designed to enable the creation of

Microsoft has announced a new version codenamed Windows 7 will be released in late 2009 - mid 2010

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. Windows 7, (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and later Vienna) is the working name for the next major version of Microsoft Windows and Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4 1943) commonly referred to as Ken Thompson (or simply Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (born September 9, 1941) is an American computer scientist notable for his influence on C and other Programming Malcolm Douglas McIlroy (born 1932 is a Mathematician, Engineer, and Programmer. Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is the Research organization Programmers at Bell Labs went on to develop Plan 9 and Inferno, which were engineered for modern distributed environments. Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a Distributed operating system, primarily used for research Inferno is an Operating system for creating and supporting distributed services 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. Plan 9 has yet to become as popular as Unix derivatives, but it has an expanding community of developers. It is currently released under the Lucent Public License. The Lucent Public License is an Open-source license created by Lucent Technologies. Inferno was sold to Vita Nuova Holdings and has been released under a GPL/MIT license. Vita Nuova Holdings Ltd is an English company based in York that provides technology for Embedded systems and Distributed applications based upon

Unix and Unix-like operating systems

Ken Thompson wrote B, mainly based on BCPL, which he used to write Unix, based on his experience in the MULTICS project. Ubuntu Kubuntu Edubuntu Xubuntu Gobuntu --> Ubuntu A Linux distribution (also called GNU/Linux by distributions such as Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Mandriva and Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4 1943) commonly referred to as Ken Thompson (or simply B is a programming language that was developed at Bell Labs. It is almost extinct as it was replaced by the C language. Multics ( Mult iplexed I nformation and C omputing S ervice was an extremely influential early Time-sharing Operating system 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). tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured The history of computer Operating systems recapitulates to a degree the recent History of computer hardware.

The Unix-like family is a diverse group of operating systems, with several major sub-categories including System V, BSD, and Linux. A Unix-like (sometimes shortened to *nix) Operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system while not necessarily conforming Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV (and usually pronounced though rarely written as System 5 was one of the versions of the Unix Operating system Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks 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 (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer The Open Group is an industry Consortium to set vendor- and technology-neutral open standards for Computing infrastructure "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. A server is a Computer dedicated to providing one or more services over a computer network typically through a request-response routine A workstation, such as a Unix workstation, RISC workstation or Engineering workstation, is a high-end Microcomputer Free software Unix variants, such as GNU, Linux and BSD, are popular in these areas. Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified GNU ( pronounced) is a computer Operating system composed entirely of Free software. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks The market share for Linux is divided between many different distributions. A Linux distribution (also called GNU/Linux by distributions such as Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Mandriva and Enterprise class distributions by Red Hat or Novell are used by corporations, but some home users may use those products. In Computing, Red Hat Inc ( is a company dedicated to Free and open source software, and a major Linux distribution vendor Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Historically home users typically installed a distribution themselves, but in 2007 Dell began to offer the Ubuntu Linux distribution on home PCs and now Walmart offers an low end computer with GOS v2. The multinational technology company Dell Inc develops manufactures sells and supports Personal computers and other computer-related products Ubuntu Kubuntu Edubuntu Xubuntu Gobuntu --> Ubuntu ^{[3] [4]} Linux on the desktop is also popular in the developer and hobbyist operating system development communities. A hobby is a spare-time Recreational pursuit Etymology A Hobby horse is a wooden or Wickerwork toy made to be Operating system development refers to the development of Operating systems, and it is often abbreviated to OSDev. (see below)

Market share statistics for freely available operating systems are usually inaccurate since most free operating systems are not purchased, making usage under-represented. On the other hand, market share statistics based on total downloads of free operating systems are often inflated, as there is no economic disincentive to acquire multiple operating systems so users can download multiple systems, test them, and decide which they like best.

Some Unix variants like HP's HP-UX and IBM's AIX are designed to run only on that vendor's hardware. HP-UX (Hewlett Packard UniX is Hewlett-Packard 's proprietary implementation of the Unix Operating system, based on System V (initially Others, such as Solaris, can run on multiple types of hardware, including x86 servers and PCs. Solaris is a Unix -based Operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS. See also X86 assembly language The generic term x86 refers to the most commercially successful Instruction set architecture in the history of Personal 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. Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently Hybrid kernel is a kernel architecture based on combining aspects of Microkernel and Monolithic kernel architectures used in Computer Nextstep was the original object-oriented, multitasking Operating system that NeXT Computer developed to run on its range of proprietary computers Mach is an Operating system Microkernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support operating system research primarily distributed and parallel FreeBSD is a Unix-like free Operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD branch through

Unix interoperability was sought by establishing the POSIX standard. POSIX (ˈpɒzɪks or "Portable Operating System Interface" is the collective name of a family of related standards specified by the IEEE to define The POSIX standard can be applied to any operating system, although it was originally created for various Unix variants.

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a line of 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 (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. Apple Inc, ( formerly Apple Computer Inc, is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing Consumer electronics Macintosh, commonly nicknamed Mac is a Brand name which covers several lines of Personal computers designed developed and marketed by Apple Inc Mac OS X is the successor to the original Mac OS, which had been Apple's primary operating system since 1984. Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc 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. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer NeXT Computer Inc (later NeXT Software Inc) was an American Computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California that

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. Mac OS X Server 10, released on March 16 1999, is the first Operating system released by Apple Computer based on their acquisition of NeXT Mac OS X version 100, Code named “Cheetah”, was the first major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server Operating Since then, five more distinct "end-user" and "server" editions of Mac OS X have been released, the most recent being Mac OS X v10.5, which was first made available in October 2007. Mac OS X version 105 “Leopard” is the sixth major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server Operating system for Macintosh Releases of Mac OS X are named after big cats; Mac OS X v10. The term big cat is used to distinguish the larger cat species from smaller ones 5 is usually referred to by Apple and users as "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 is the server-oriented version of Apple 's Operating system, Mac OS X. The software architecture of a program or computing system is the structure or structures of the system, which comprise software components the externally visible properties A server is a Computer dedicated to providing one or more services over a computer network typically through a request-response routine Mac OS X Server includes workgroup 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. Network services are the foundation of a networked computing environment A mail transfer agent (MTA (also called a mail transport agent, message transfer agent, or smtpd (short for SMTP daemon) is a Samba is a Free software re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, originally developed by Australian Andrew Tridgell The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP (ˈɛl dæp is an Application protocol for querying and modifying Directory services running over The Domain Name System (DNS is a hierarchical naming system for computers services or any resource participating in the Internet.

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). A real-time operating system ( RTOS; generally pronounced as "are-toss" is a multitasking Operating system intended for real-time A real-time operating system ( RTOS; generally pronounced as "are-toss" is a multitasking Operating system intended for real-time In Computer science, real-time computing (RTC is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"—i 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. TPF is an IBM Real-time operating system for mainframes descended from the IBM System/360 family including ZSeries and System American Airlines Inc (AA is a US -based airline and the world's Largest airline in total passenger miles transported and passenger fleet size International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Sabre is a Computer reservations system /global distribution system (GDS used by Airlines Railways Hotels Travel agents and other

Embedded systems

Main article: microcontroller operating systems

Embedded systems use a variety of dedicated operating systems. Operating systems can be categorized by technology ownership licensing working state usage and by many other characteristics An embedded system is a special-purpose Computer system designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions often with Real-time computing constraints In some cases, the "operating system" software is directly linked to the application to produce a monolithic special-purpose program. In the simplest embedded systems, there is no distinction between the OS and the application.

Embedded systems that have fixed deadlines use a real-time operating system such as VxWorks, eCos, QNX, and RTLinux. A real-time operating system ( RTOS; generally pronounced as "are-toss" is a multitasking Operating system intended for real-time VxWorks is a real-time Operating system made and sold by Wind River Systems of Alameda, California, USA eCos ( embedded configurable operating system) is an Open source, royalty-free Real-time operating system intended for Embedded systems and QNX (pronounced either Q-N-X or Q-nix is a commercial Unix-like Real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the Embedded systems market RTLinux (or Real-Time Linux is an extension of Linux to a Real-time operating system, which was originally developed by Victor Yodaiken at the New Mexico Institute

Some embedded systems use operating systems such as Palm OS, Windows CE, BSD, and Linux, although such operating systems do not support real-time computing. Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is an embedded Operating system initially developed by U Windows CE (also known officially as Windows Embedded Compact post version 6 Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks

Windows CE shares similar APIs to desktop Windows but shares none of desktop Windows' codebase. Windows CE (also known officially as Windows Embedded Compact post version 6

However Linux has recently pulled ahead as a leader in embedded operating systems, due to its lack of royalties, vast capabilities, high performance, and potentially tiny memory footprint.

Hobby operating system development

Operating system development, or OSDev for short, as a hobby has a large cult-like following. Operating system development refers to the development of Operating systems, and it is often abbreviated to OSDev. As such, operating systems, such as Linux, have derived from hobby operating system projects. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks The design and implementation of an operating system requires skill and determination, and the term can cover anything from a basic "Hello World" boot loader to a fully featured kernel. A "Hello World" program is a Computer program that prints out "Hello world!" on a Display device. One classical example of this is the Minix Operating System—an OS that was designed as a teaching tool but was heavily used by hobbyists before Linux eclipsed it in popularity. MINIX is a Unix-like computer Operating system based on a Microkernel architecture. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks

Other

Older operating systems which are still used in niche markets include OS/2 from IBM; Mac OS, the non-Unix precursor to Apple's Mac OS X; BeOS; XTS-300. OS/2 is a computer Operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc BeOS is an Operating system for Personal computers which began development by Be Inc The XTS-400 is a multi-level secure computer system It is Multi-user and multi-tasking. Some, most notably AmigaOS and RISC OS, continue to be developed as minority platforms for enthusiast communities and specialist applications. AmigaOS is the default native Operating system of the Amiga personal computer RISC OS is an Operating system originally created by British manufacturer Acorn Computers for their ARM based Computers ranging OpenVMS formerly from DEC, is still under active development by Hewlett-Packard. Open Virtual Memory System ( OpenVMS) initially known just as Virtual Memory System ( VMS) is the name of a High-end Computer server Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the Computer industry

Research and development of new operating systems continues. GNU Hurd is designed to be backwards compatible with Unix, but with enhanced functionality and a microkernel architecture. Singularity is a project at Microsoft Research to develop an operating system with better memory protection based on the . Singularity is an experimental Operating system being built by Microsoft Research since 2003 Microsoft Research (MSR is a division of Microsoft created in 1991 for researching various Computer science topics and issues Memory protection is a way to control memory usage on a computer and is core to virtually every Operating system. Net managed code model. Systems development follows the same model used by other Software development, which involves maintainers, version control "trees"^[5], Fork (software development), "patches", and specifications. Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a Software product In Software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of Source code from one software package and start independent development From the AT&T-Berkeley lawsuit the new unencombered systems were based on 4. 4BSD which forked as FreeBSD and NetBSD efforts to replace missing code after the Unix wars. The Unix wars were the struggles between Vendors of the Unix Computer Operating system in the late 1980s and early 1990s to set the standard for Recent forks include DragonFly BSD and Darwin from BSD Unix ^[6]. DragonFly BSD is a free Unix-like operating system created as a fork of FreeBSD 4 Darwin is an open source UNIX -based computer Operating system released by Apple Inc

References

Bibliography

• Auslander, Marc A. ; Larkin, David C. ; Scherr, Allan L. . "The evolution of the MVS Operating System". . IBM J. Research & Development http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/255/auslander.pdf
• Deitel, Harvey M. ; Deitel, Paul; Choffnes, David. Operating Systems. Pearson/Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-092641-8.  
• Bic, Lubomur F. ; Shaw, Alan C. (2003). Operating Systems. . Pearson: Prentice Hall. Prentice Hall is a leading educational publisher It is an Imprint of Pearson Education Inc  
• Stallings (2005). Operating Systems, Internals and Design Principles. Pearson: Prentice Hall. Prentice Hall is a leading educational publisher It is an Imprint of Pearson Education Inc  
• Silberschatz, Avi; Galvin, Peter; Gagne, Greg (2008). Operating Systems Concepts. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-470-12872-0.  

See also

• List of operating systems
• Comparison of operating systems
• Operating systems timeline
• Trusted operating system
• List of important publications in computer science#Operating systems
• Kernel (computer science)
• System call
• Orthogonal persistence
• Object-oriented operating system
• Disk operating system
• Operating system advocacy
• Process management (computing)

External links

• Operating Systems at the Open Directory Project
• Multics History and the history of operating systems
• How Stuff Works - Operating Systems
• Operating Systems Reviews
• DynaOS - Description of a conceptual Distributed Operating System
• How to choose the right operating system

Operating systems can be categorized by technology ownership licensing working state usage and by many other characteristics --> UserSecuniBot permission to update This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computer Operating systems from 1954 to 2008. Trusted Operating System (TOS generally refers to an Operating system that provides sufficient support for Multilevel security and evidence of correctness to Computability Computability An introduction In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS In Computing, a system call is the mechanism used by an application program to request service from the Kernel. In Computer science, persistence refers to the characteristic of data that outlives the execution of the program that created it An object-oriented operating system is an Operating system which internally uses object-oriented methodologies. Operating system advocacy is the practice of attempting to increase the awareness and improve the perception of a Computer Operating system. Process management is an integral part of any modern day Operating system (OS The Open Directory Project ( ODP) also known as dmoz (from directory

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