What is Operating system or simply OS in general? The simplest explanation would be a program that makes it possible for the hardware of the computer to operate and communicate with its software. A computer would not be able to perform tasks without the operating system.
As you can understand, there are lots of types of operating systems. Let us talk about some of them. We will discuss basic types only and a couple of examples of each. Keep in mind that today many computer operating system will definitely fall into more than one of the categories to be discussed. We will start with graphical user interface or GUI. This system is generally navigated by means of a mouse and has graphics, icons, etc. Examples will be the following: Windows 98 and CE, System 7.x.
There is also a multi-user system which is called like that because several people can use it at the same time. It means that operating system will support multiple users at the same time or at different periods of time. Examples are: Windows 200, Linux, Unix. These operating systems are also multiprocessing ones. They can support more than one computer at a time and utilize it. It should also be added that with the help of Linux, Unix and Windoes 200 it is possible to use different parts of software and to run them simultaneously!
There is also a subdivision on multitasking operating systems. They make it possible to run multiple software concurrently. To this group Windows 200 and Unix are related. Finally, it should be said that the list of today’s operating systems is a huge one. MAC OS, MS-DOS 1.x-6.x, NEXTSTEP, MINIX, XENIX, WINDOWS NT, WINDOWS XP, VctorLinux, SunSolaris and so on and so forth. We will discuss some of them in the upcoming articles.