Operating system

From iA wiki

See also: Operating Systems | Platform

Acronym: OS / Operating System

Generally speaking, this is the stuff which sits between a program and the hardware, or platform. An operating system provides a common standard for developers.

Operating Systems often hide complex machine code from end users with a desktop and graphical user interface. This can help productivity as the average computer users does not want to deal with a command line interface or the details of connecting peripherals.

A more complete List of Operating Systems.

Related Topics

• Multi-Tasking
• Preemptive Multi-Tasking
• Service Pack
• Task Swapping
• InTheBeginningWasTheCommandLine

External links

• EncyclOSpedia
• Evolution Of Operating Systems
• Computer World magazine's look at operating systems.
• FreeOS - resource center for free Operating Systems
• XOSL - a free graphical boot manager released by Geurt Vos under the GPL. XOSL can dual-boot over 30 operating systems on a single disk.