Computer Operating Systems - Research Paper Example

4 May Computer Operating Systems Operating system can be described as Heart of a computer. It is the most vital part of a system. The operating system is the most crucial software which a computer needs to run itself. It is a set of different software’s which manages the hardware resources and different activities of the system. It monitors different application programs which run on the system. Operating system allots time to the tasks and monitors them so that the system works efficiently. It manages the resources of the computer. It allocates the CPU, memory and the input/output devices. It manages the data that is it handles the storage of the data it manages the input and output. It enables communication between the system and the user. There are different types of operating system available in the market such as Real-time, Multi-user, Multi-tasking, Distributed and Embedded. Real-time operating systems are used in applications which are real-time . Multi-user operating system are useful when there are more than one users to access a single computer at the same time. In Multi-tasking operating systems different tasks are executed at the same time. In Distributed operating system many computers are connected together to give the appearance of a single computer. Embedded operating systems are used in systems which are embedded. “Examples of popular modern operating systems include Android,BSD,iOS,GNU/Linux,Mac OS X,Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone and IBM z/OS” (Operating System para. 4). In this research we will discuss various operating systems such as Snow Leopard, Windows, Linux, Unix and Ubuntu. We will study the advantages and disadvantages of these operating systems. We will also learn how these operating systems are installed in the computer. Snow Leopard – Snow leopard is an operating system used in Macintosh systems. It has a high performance, good efficiency and uses less memory to run. It is compatible with the new hardware of Macintosh. “New programming frameworks such as OpenCL were created allowing software developers to use graphic cards in their applications” (Mac OS X Snow Leopard para.2). It is not compatible with the Mac systems which use processors like PowerPC. “As support for Rosetta was dropped in Mac OS Lion, Snow Leopard is the last version of Mac OS X that is able to run PowerPC-only applications” (Mac OS X Snow Leopard para.2). It supports Intel’s Core Solo and Core Duo Processors which are 32-bit. Power is managed properly as new features like the “wake on demand feature supported on more recent Macintosh hardware. Wake on demand takes advantage of the sleepy proxy service implemented in Airport and Time Capsule routers, so that the computer can sleep while the router responds to mDNS queries. Should the request require the host computer to wake up, the router sends the necessary special wake-up-packet to sleeping computer” (Mac OS X Snow Leopard pg.4). System requirements of Snow Leopard are – A Mac Computer consisting of Intel processor RAM of 1GB Minimum 5GB free space DVD drive or USB for installing Some features need more requirements such as – “QuickTime H.264 hardware acceleration support, requires an Nvidia GeForce 9400M,320M, or GT330M graphics card” “OpenCL, requires a supported Nvidia or ATI graphics card” (Mac OS X Snow Leopard pg.2). Advantages and disadvantages – It is best to use same company’s software and hardware while designing a system, but Snow Leopard uses Intel Processors and Nvidia graphic cards. This affects the performance of the system. There are least chances of virus attacks as compared to windows. There are less gaming features in it as most gaming companies prefer providing softwares for Windows operating system. There are interesting softwares bundled with Snow Leopard. Its desktop is very attractive. Installation – 1. Insert the Snow Leopard installation DVD in to the disk. 2. Double- click Install button. 3. Click on the continue button and accept the terms and conditions. 4. Select the disk where you want to install Snow Leopard. 5. For customizing the installation select Customize and choose from the available list of options such as fonts, printers and translation of language. 6. Then click on the Install button. 7. Verify that you really want to install and then enter the username and necessary password. This will start the installation. Windows Windows is an operating system is a product of Microsoft. It was first targeted just for Intel based systems. It was “estimated 88.9 percent total usage share on Web connected computers” (Operating System para. 50). The latest version of Windows are Windows 7 and Windows server 2008 R2 for workstations and servers respectively. Windows 7 has become widely popular and it is used more than Windows XP. It was invented in 1985 to run as an application on MS-DOS, as it was considered as the main operating system during earlier days. Windows 95 was released in the year 1995 “which only used MS-DOS as a bootstrap. For backwards compatability,Win9x could run real-mode MS-DOS and 16 bits Windows 3.x drivers” (Operating System para. 42). The final version of the Win9x series was Windows Me. All the next versions were Windows NT kernel based. Windows existing versions are compatible with IA-32 and x86-64 microprocessors. Windows 8 supports ARM architecture. Server based Windows editions are also very popular “Server editions of Windows are widely used. In recent years, Microsoft has expended significant capital in an effort to promote the use of Windows as a server operating environment. However, Windows' usage on servers is not as widespread as on personal computers, as Windows competes against Linux and BSD for server market share” (Operating System para.39). Windows operating system lack security. They are vulnerable to virus attacks. Windows have introduced features to stop spyware. Windows Defender is an anti- spyware feature of the windows. System requirements – 1GHz or 32bit or 64 bit processor 1 GB or 2 GB RAM 16 GB free space for 32 bit processor or 20 GB for 64 bit processor Direct X 9 for graphics Advantages and Disadvantages of Windows – Windows are expensive as compared to linux. Windows are very easy to use. It is compatible with many softwares. It is not secure. Even though new improvements are implemented it lags behind other operating systems. These series are known be buggy. Has a huge library of software’s, utilities and games. Most of the hardware’s support Windows operating system. More prone to virus attacks. Installation 1. First on the computer, insert the installation CD or USB drive for Windows 7. 2. Restart the computer. 3. When the instructions appear on the screen follow them. 4. Select the language and preferences and click next. 5. If the installation page is not visible then some changes has to be made in the settings. 6. Read the terms and conditions on the license and if you agree with it click accept and then click on the next button. 7. Click on the Custom button when asked about the type of the installation you want. 8. Select the partition where you want the installation to be done or select the Unallocated Space incase partition is not listed. And then click on Next button. 9. Finish the installation by following the instructions you would be ask to name the computer and creating a user account. Linux Linux is a kernel based operating system. It is an open source and free software. Linux acts as an intermediate between the system hardware and the application programs running on it. This operating system was designed by Linus Torvalds in the year 1991. In the beginning it was designed for computers using Intel x86 processors. It is widely used operating system in hardware based systems than other operating systems. It is commonly used on servers and other important systems like the mainframe and even supercomputers.”More than 90% of today’s 500 fastest supercomputers run some variant of Linux, including the 10 fastest. Linux also run on embedded systems such as mobile phones, tablet computers, network routers, televisions and video game consoles. The Android system is wide use on mobile devices is built on the Linux kernel” (Linux para.2). Linux is much similar to the Unix operating system hence efficient in networking, process control and file handling. “A distribution oriented toward desktop use will typically include the X Window System and an accompanying desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma” (Linux para.4). Drivers are either installed in the kernel or loaded during working with the system. The user interacts with Linux operating system with the help of “command line interface (CGI), a graphical user interface(GUI), or through controls attached to the associated hardware, which is common for embedded systems. For desktop systems the default mode is usually a graphical user interface by which the CLI is available through terminal emulator windows or on a separate virtual console” (Linux para.10). Most of the components of linux which are low level make use of CLI.”The CLI is particularly suited for automation of repetitive or delayed tasks, and provides very simple inter-process communication. A graphical terminal emulator program is often used to access the CLI from a Linux desktop” (Linux para.12). In the Linux operating system CLI is implemented with the help of shell which is same as that of Unix based systems. For server based Linux systems use only CLI as its interface. System Requirements DVD drive or flash drive Minimum 1 GB free space 1GB RAM Adobe Acrobat Reader Advantages and Disadvantages Linux is available free of cost or at a cheap price than Windows. It is very secure as compared to other operating systems like Windows. Linux is not easy to use unlike Windows which is very easy to use even for those who rarely use computers. As compared to Windows, Linux have less software’s and games. Linux is reliable and can run for long without the need of rebooting. Many hardware manufacturers prefer Windows over Linux, that is most hardware’s are windows compatible. Installation Insert the Linux Installation CD or the flash drive containing the installation files. Switch on the PC and enter menu for boot. Now choose the drive which contains the setup. Then begin the installation. Some information may be asked by the installer you need to provide those. When the installation will approach the end you would be asked for computer name, user name and password along with some other information. Reboot the system. Install the needed drivers. Unix Unix is an operating system commonly used for servers, mobile devices and workstations. It is a multitasking operating system which is also multi-user. That means it can perform different tasks at a time for many users. This is an important feature of Unix. It was not meant to be used as an application software but it became popular “as the operating system started spreading in the academic circle as users added their own tools to the system and shared them with colleagues. Both Unix and C programming language were developed by the AT&T and distributed to government and academic institutions which led to both being ported to a wider variety of machine families than any other operating system. As a result, Unix became synonymous with open systems” (Unix para.6). Unix architecture has structured the Internet and the networks. It is a secure operating system. If multiple users are involved it provides username and password for each user. This is extremely useful in securing the user data. There are different privileges that can be set for various parts of the computer. Unix has other features like “the use of plain text for storing data a hierarchical file system treating devices and certain types of inter-process communication as files and the use of a large number of software tools small programs that can be strung together through a command line interpreter using pipes as opposed to using a single monolithic program that includes all of the same functionality. These concepts are collectively known as Unix philosophy” (Unix para.8). Advantages and Disadvantages- A rich set of small commands are available that do specific tasks well. With efficient virtual memory many programs can run with a modest amount of physical memory.  Documentation is too short on examples and tutorials to help us figure out how to use the tools provided. Multiple users can run multiple programs each at the same time without interfering with each other. Commands often have cryptic names which is a disadvantage. To use Unix well, we need to understand the main design features which is not always possible. The traditional command line shell interface is designed for the programmer, not for the casual user which is a disadvantage. Portable operating system. Entire file system appears as a single large tree of nested directories; regardless of how many different physical devices are included. Installation 1. Check if some operating system is already installed in the system. 2. Check if the necessary devices are properly connected. 3. If previous version of Unix is already installed make use of shutdown command so that the system goes in console mode. 4. If there are no previously installed OS then 5. Insert the installation CD. 6. Select the desired language. 7. Next from the File menu insert the name of the host, date and the current time. 8. Also select the area of living, location and time zone. 9. Enter the password. 10. Choose the installation type. 11. Customize the kernel. 12. Confirm the installation. 13. Now the system will reboot. 14. Next load the graphics utilities. 15. Make partition for the system users Ubuntu Ubantu is an operating system which is very cheap in its cost yet it has many advantages as other operating systems like Windows. Ubantu is available free of cost one can download it and install it in your system without paying any fees for its license. It is based on the Linux operating system. Hence it is secure and stable. The main objective behind the development of Ubuntu operating system was building an operating system equivalent to Linux but easy to use unlike Linux. It is still under development resulting in frequent release of updated versions. It was developed in 2004, in every six months new versions of Ubantu are released which supports security and fixes bugs. It consists different software’s majority of them are freeware. “The only exceptions are some proprietary hardware drivers. The main license used is the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) which, along with the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL), explicitly declares that users are free to run, copy distribute study, change, develop and improve the software” (Ubuntu (Operating System) para.9). The main focus of Ubuntu is usability, stability and security. Some features restrict the inexperienced users to make unnecessary changes and creating security issues. The softwares that come with Ubuntu are “LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Empathy, Transmission and several light weight games such as Sudoku and chess” (Ubuntu (Operating System) para.13). Ubuntu closes its ports that are used for networking using firewall the selection of the ports is customized. System Requirements- 700MHz and 300MHz processor for desktop and server respectively. 512MiB Memory 5 GB of free space Resolution of screen should b 1024x768 Installation drive or port for USB Internet connection is beneficial Advantages and Disadvantages – Ubuntu operating system is freeware. No cost is associated in its downloading, installation and redistribution. Its working is efficient. There are help docs provided for fixing incase of error. Also experts share information online. Consists of more than 2000 applications. Most hardware providers make hardware’s that can be used on Windows and not Ubuntu. Many software’s are not compatible with Ubuntu. It is easy to use unlike Linux. As compared to other operating system it has many customizing features. There are lot of setting options that can be changed. It is more accepted than Windows Vista. Installation – 1. Download the Ubuntu and burn it in to a CD 2. Make sure you take the backup of all your data to avoid any loss in data. 3. Restart the system and start booting from CD drive. 4. Select the language. 5. Later select the time zone. 6. Do the partition if needed and then click on the forward button. 7. Details about the user should be provided next. 8. The settings which was specified will be shown check those and click “Install”. 9. Finally restart the computer after the installation is completed. Conclusion: Operating systems have made the use of a computer more simple and easy for a user. It has made the most complicated things to appear easy. Here we studied operating system such as Snow Leopard, Windows, Linux, Unix, and Ubuntu. We saw the advantages and disadvantages of each of these. Snow Leopard has many interesting softwares bundled with it but it has less gaming features. Its desktop is very attractive to view. But it uses Intel Processors and Nvidia graphic cards which reduces its performance. But it is less prone to virus attacks. Windows are very easy to use but it is very buggy and is expensive as compared to other operating systems. It is compatible with many softwares and has many utilities and games, but it is not at all secure and is more prone to virus attacks. Linux is cheap as compared to Windows it is also very secure than Windows bit it is not easy to use and has less gaming features. Unix has efficient virtual memory which is a good feature but the command line shell interface is not very familiar with the users. Ubuntu is also a freeware like Linux but it is easier than Linux. But there are less hardware providers for Ubuntu. So each operating system has its share of advantages and disadvantages the user has to make proper choice in selecting the best operating system according to his needs depending on the available system configuration and other requirements. Works Cited Linux. The Free Encyclopedia. 2012. Web. 6 June 2012. Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. 2012. Web. 6 June 2012. Operating System. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. 2012. Web. 6 June 2012. Unix. The Free Encyclopedia. 2012. Web. 6 June 2012. Ubuntu (Operating System). Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. 2012. Web. 6 June 2012. Read More