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I think the discussion of what constitutes an OS is mostly academic. That said, to me, an operating system is basically any environment that allows me to run a

I think the discussion of what constitutes an OS is mostly academic. That said, to me, an operating system is basically any environment that allows me to run applications. Usually, that implies a kernel, since you can't do much without one, but in some circumstances, you might not have a "kernel" in the traditional sense. For example, LXC containers don't have their own kernel, but they provide an environment - binaries, libraries, etc - where I can run applications. I can rightly call that an OS, I think. Edit: clarity

ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "I think the discussion of what constitutes an OS is mostly academic." An operating system is the software used to interface hardware and applications. If you miss out on control of hardware it's not an OS. At most, solutions like unikernels are an edge case, but anything with less direct control over hardware than unikernels are not. If the term 'OS' is too loose it becomes meaningless.