Types Of OS
The types of OS or operating system are not made up of one software but a collection of programs that can help you tremendously when managing your hardware resources. The OS also lets you do all the things you love doing on your computer. Choosing a good operating system spells the difference between getting things done smoothly on your computer and getting frazzled by glitches for every little thing you try to do. Most applications that you will download and install will run depending on what type of operating system you have. The types of OS you might want to choose for your computer are many and varied.
Nowadays, the most popular operating systems are Android, Linux, Microsoft Windows, iOS, and Mac OS X. But these are brands of OS, which can be different from the classification of the types of OS around.
Real-time OS is can let you run real time applications using special schedule algorithms. The best thing about these types of OS is that they can quickly respond to events, especially if the settings are done well. This kind of system can switch between several tasks seamlessly, and you can set priorities that the system can run.
A multi-user OS is one of the types of OS that can grant accessibility to more than one users at a time. Some examples of multi-user systems are time sharing and internet servers. These can be different from single-user types of OS because these allow access to only one user but permit the opening of multiple programs at the same time.
Another innovation as far as types of OS go is the multi-task OS, which permits the running of more than one program. There are two subtypes, which are pre-emptive and cooperative OS. In the former, the CPU time is divided and each segment is allotted for one of the programs. Operating systems that resemble Unix systems like Linux and Solaris support this subtype. Cooperative multitasking OS is a subtype that permits each process to make way for another process in a specific way.
An operating system is said to be distributed when it takes care of a cluster of independent computer units, making it seem like they’re all doing the job of one computer. These types of OS can be used in big companies that have room for more than one computer per work station. These types of OS also require the establishment of networked units linked together.
Embedded OS are used in smaller computer units like PDAs. These types of OS has limited resources but they are still able to operate seamlessly. Batch processing operating systems process data and programs in batches, and all the work is done simultaneously regardless of user intervention. In fact, very little user intervention is needed to make this system work. Why would companies want batch processing operating systems? Companies that need large amounts of processed data in a limited timeframe rely on these types of operating systems to clear their backlog. In this case, the data that needs to be processed have to be similar and require the same processing tasks.
