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This is the first i've ever heard of a debate, wiki seems pretty clear about what an OS is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system https://en.wikipedia.
by katbyte 13y ago
This is the first i've ever heard of a debate, wiki seems pretty clear about what an OS is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
- bane 13y agoSome questions to consider: Is it an OS's job to... -provide a Graphical Interface? -provide any interface? -handle a hardware abstraction layer? -handle font rendering? -composite graphical displays? -provide an abstract virtual machine environment across different processor types? -handle user accounts? What about systems that aren't multi-user? -does an OS need to handle virtual memory to be an OS? what if all memory management (virtual or otherwise) is handled by a dedicated support chip instead? Some more: -does the simple timing code on a $1 digital watch count as an OS? -does a system that, when turned on, goes automatically to a memory address for more instructions, and those instructions are only the instructions for a user program count as having an OS (lots and lots of computers past and present are like this)? -does an OS provide software beyond just the Kernel? e.g. Start with a modern linux distro and start removing packages, at what point is it no longer an OS? (GNU would like you to think it's an OS only when you have GNU userspace tools, X etc. on it. ) -is an OS just a space to host and run programs? Does that make the JVM an OS? How about a browser? How about MS-Excel and Macros? -the OS I'm using right now ships with a paint program, a calculator a browser and a text editor, must an OS have those things? -how about a system with a complex BIOS that happens to have USB, Ethernet support and a web browser? Is the boot code now an OS? When does bootcode become an OS if this isn't it? -should an OS handle all available hardware on a system or just some subset? -what is the first OS in history? etc. etc. etc. At some point, somewhere between boot loader and a fully loaded gaming system there exists this thing called an OS. It seems to be more than just a kernel, unless it's an embedded system with basically just a kernel (unless the system is so small and dedicated it just runs code directly without an OS layer (unless you count the code that's running and doing its own resource management an OS since by definition an OS does resource management)), or it seems to be resource management code that also happens to have nice font rendering and a full networking stack. The debate goes much deeper and has gone on for decades.