ITJuju.com

An Operating System AKA an OS – is the software that makes your computer more than just a big expensive paper weight.

It’s the software that allows you to use the physical computer for useful things like playing solitaire.

A friend of mine doesn’t conceder an operating system without solitaire to be anything worth using.

Solitaire to him is the only reason for using computer.

What makes this funny is that he’s an IT admin just like me.


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Two of the most widley used OS’s are:

Microsoft Windows
The best version so far is XP in my opinion, when you turn off the Aero graphics which is the main reason for the slowness of Vista, you basically stop using the only thing that make vista worth moving to.

Apple Mac OS X

You also have other UNIX and UNIX like OS’s like:

Sun Solaris

IBM AIX

HPUX, made by HP

BSD based UNIX OS’s are (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD):

Apple Mac
The core of the Mac OS is partly based on Freebsd.

FreeBSD

OpenBSD

NetBSD

DragonFly BSD

PC-BSD

A very good free desktop OS based on FreeBSD, it’s also the best free desktop OS for the non technical

The UNIX like ones are GNU/Linux based OS’s.

Linux itself isn’t an OS it’s a piece of software which when combined with other software (like bootloader, userland tools, GUI – everything that you need to make a working OS) then it can be used to be able to make an OS.

Some of the more popular of the 200 or so GNU/Linux based OS’s are:

Suse

RedHat Fedora

Debian

Ubuntu

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If you really want a long winded explanation of what an Operating system is then knock youself out over at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system