Until the popularity of GNU/Linux began, UNIX has been the mainstream of operating systems used in scientific computing, mainframes, and supercomputers. Many large companies have developed their own UNIX products after obtaining UNIX licenses, such as IBM's AIX, HP's HP-UX, SCO's Openserver, SUN's Solaris (acquired by Oracle) and SGI's IRIX. In the past decades, UNIX's copyright owners continued to change, and the number of licensees increased. Later, the company noticed the commercial value brought by UNIX and it began to find some legal means to protect UNIX, making it a trade secret.
UNIX has been widely used in the server field because of its safe, reliable, efficient and powerful features.Īt the beginning, the UNIX owner AT&T licensed the UNIX source code to academic institutions for research or teaching at a low price or even for free. UNIX is a multi-user, multi-process computer operating system, derived from AT&T Unix developed in the Bell Labs of AT&T since the 1970s. Because of the high sales of Chromebooks, Chrome OS has left macOS and Windows far behind in the education market. Initially Chrome OS is used on netbooks, and later it is extended to laptops (Chromebook) and desktops (Chromebox).
It's also compatible with Android applications (downloadable through the Google Play store) and Linux applications. Therefore, Chrome OS mainly supports Web applications. It uses Google Chrome browser as its main user interface. Chrome OSĬhrome OS is an open-source PC operating system based on Linux and developed by Google.
Linux vs Windows - What Are the Differences (Focus on 10 Aspects) 4. Besides, some individual users may also like to use Linux OS, because it's free, safe, customizable, privacy-conscious, and of low resource consumption. In this way, they can avoid high copyright fees of Windows. Popular Linux distros include Debian (as well as its derivative versions Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.), Fedora (as well as its related versions Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, etc.), openSUSE, etc.ħ Best Lightweight Linux Distros for Old PCs īecause these operating systems are free, some manufacturers may preinstall them on computers to substitute Windows. Linux strictly refers to the kernel of the operating system, but nowadays Linux is often used to refer to a complete operating system based on Linux.īecause Linux is open-source, many people would like to develop it and therefore Linux has many distributions. It is currently the world's largest free operating system. Linux is a free and open-source UNIX-like operating system. But in June 2020 at WWDC, a new macOS version macOS 11.0 "Big Sur" was unveiled and it is set to be released this fall. Currently, the latest available macOS version is macOS 10.15 "Catalina". The macOS system is a graphical operating system based on the XNU hybrid kernel, developed by Apple itself, and generally cannot be installed on an ordinary PC.
Mac OS is the first successful graphical user interface system in the commercial field. MacOS, formerly known as "MacOS X" or "OS X", is an operating system that runs on Apple's Macintosh series of computers.
Windows 10: It's Time to Upgrade to Windows 10? 2. Note: Microsoft has stopped the technology support for Windows 7 since January 2020 and this company has also announced that it would stop the technology support for Windows 8 in 2023. These Windows versions are different from one another in GUI, built-in software, usage habit, etc. Famous Windows versions include Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.
So far, Microsoft has released many Windows versions. It uses a GUI graphical operation mode and is the mainstream of computer operating systems. The Windows operating system is a windowed operating system developed by Microsoft Corporation. In this part, I will introduce some common operating systems on the market today, including Windows, MacOS, Linux, Chrome OS, and UNIX. What operating system do I have? There are so many operating systems on the market and each operating system has many OS versions, which makes users confused. The desktop operating system is the most widely used system. According to application areas, operating systems are divided into 3 types: desktop operating systems, server operating systems and embedded operating systems.
Operating System, referred to as OS, is a computer program that manages computer hardware and software resources. What Should I Know About My Operating System?.