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Article #4360Re: Difference between Unix and Linux?
From: Jeffrey Siegal
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 06:50
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 06:50
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Isaac wrote: > The definition I recall from CSC-501 was that that an operating system > was the software layered over top of the computer hardware that provided > services making it easier to write programs. Things typically provided > by such a system are IO services, support for, multi-tasking and process > scheduling, management of storage devices, control of peripherals > among other things. > > I would consider that to be at least one conventional definition. It's the > one that was in most OS textbooks in the early nineties. The linux kernel > certainly fits that definition. But of course so might software layered > over or used in conjunction with the kernel if people actually write > their programs to that layer rather than to the kernel. So you're suggesting that if X is an operating system, then some part of X, call it Y, is also itself an "operating system" if it "provides services making it easier to write programs?" That seems absurd for the simple reason that when people usually refer to *the* operating system (signular) running on a computer being a complete entity with components having other names (device drivers, memory manager, authentication, kernel, possibly GUI, and so forth). I don't think I've ever seen an operating system referred to as a collection of components each of which is also consider to be an operating system (odd cases such as virtual machine managers excluded).
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f8c9b,c2f5a7a6eb2eb0a9 X-Google-Attributes: gidf8c9b,public X-Google-Thread: 1020c6,c2f5a7a6eb2eb0a9 X-Google-Attributes: gid1020c6,public X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,7144e36039d56e89 X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-06-27 23:50:51 PST Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: Jeffrey Siegal <jbs@quiotix.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.questions,gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Difference between Unix and Linux? Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 23:50:44 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <3D1C0744.39B6EB51@quiotix.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <25fc8d92.0206150829.2aba827b@posting.google.com> <Xns922EAE616F7DFjasonbaugherpikeilus@209.242.76.10> <aelarj$5qt$1@tilde.itg.ti.com> <aermut$1vt9$1@agate.berkeley.edu> <n36dhucf8bochbnh1lfhtp78lkrrerjpug@4ax.com> <afddm8$94k$1@tilde.itg.ti.com> <3D1A3FFD.4CE18AAC@quiotix.com> <afffra$e32us$2@ID-125932.news.dfncis.de> <3D1B719A.7020406@quiotix.com> <slrnahnfun.pj.isaac@latveria.castledoom.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 25