Operating System Advantages And Disadvantages

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As we learned in class from Dr. Ying Liu, there is no universally accepted definition for what an operating system is. According to Dr. Paul Mullins from Slippery Rock University, “An operating system (OS) is a software, that manages computer hardware resources, runs other programs, and provides common services for the user and application software” (“5.2 Software”). This goes hand in had with what Dr. Liu taught in class with his PowerPoint lectures stating that an operating system is “A program that acts as an intermediary between a user of a computer and the computer hardware”. It is important to comprehend that the operating system is one of the most important aspects of a computer. They can be found on any devices with a computer, cell …show more content…

Well, the market seems to disagree-or maybe it is only because of the high price point that Apple Inc. has on Macintosh computers. Unlike Windows, Mac OS has limited hardware support, which means that it can only be run-legally-on Apple devices. This is a disadvantage that has advantages within it; because of this disadvantage, Apple computers are less prone to viruses and malware because it is built entirely different than Windows (“Windows vs. Mac OS X vs. Linux: The Operating System Battle”, Ukshini). Also if less people are able to get their hands on these, hackers are less prone to want to attack them as “there not enough ‘food’ there.” But besides being an exclusive, pricy, and one of the least risky operating systems, the Mac OS is also very stable as it requires less processing power making it fast and efficient when working with software application that is developed for …show more content…

A kernel is “The one program running at all times on the computer…provides things such as network communication, file access, and process management. The kernel is there to make accessing hardware easier to the user (and in some cases protecting the hardware from the user” (Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne, 2010, p.6). Thus, in essence, the kernel is one of the components of an operating system. This being said, Linux only becomes a full operating system once we enhance it with one of the contributions that have been made by developers that are known as “distributions” or “distros”. Linux has many distributions such as Arch, Ubuntu, Tails, and the list goes on. This being said, Linux is similar to the Mac OS in the sense that it doesn’t have a wide variety of software applications or hardware support, they have to be made to be specifically compatible with it. Similarly, Linux is prone to less vulnerabilities, which is always a good thing. However, Linux only hold 1.62% of the market share and this is due to the fact that it is one of the most complicated operating systems and requires much knowledge of using systems and tampering with them. These systems are not typically sold, but, instead, are built by those who have a deep interest in computers, or

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