Computer Operating Systems

After a long sum of time I am finally writing another article on my blog. Well, this time, it’s about computer operating systems (OS). As I am more of a tech freak, you can expect this type of articles a lot. But don’t worry, I will be writing on many other topics too.

So, about computer operating systems, there are major three computer operating systems the tech world has to offer today. They are Windows OS from Microsoft, Mac OS by apple (also known as OSX) and Linux distributions by various companies, organizations and communities. (Know that Linux itself is not an OS, Linux is the kernel used in Linux distributions. And the kernel is the heart of an OS) you may be thinking about DOS, UNIX and OpenBSD. But I won’t be going through those as they are outdated and not so common these days.

Fair enough. Let’s talk about the three major operating systems. I will be highlighting the main reasons use the OS and will odd out the reasons against the particular OS. But you are completely free to use your OS and my idea about a certain OS may differ from your opinion about it. It’s not a problem, this is just my view about the OS.

First let’s talk about the most popular OS, ‘WINDOWS’ Microsoft has released a lot of OS versions since its start. Among them, its latest release is Windows 8. So why is Windows so popular? What does it has to offer? In my opinion, one of the main reason to the fame of the OS is its friendly user interface. Playing with a Windows PC is very easy. Even a kid can navigate throughout the OS without much difficulty. The other main reason for Windows is high quality commercial softwares and games. Around 99% of the high-end PC games are exclusively for Windows. And there are many commercial softwares which are essentials for businesses. Not to mention, many uses Windows because it is the most popular OS.

Well that was FOR Windows. Now let’s see against Windows. The OS is really expensively and so is its office suite which is not included in the OS. 90% of the softwares for Windows are commercial, so enriching your PC will cost from your pocket. Windows is vulnerable for lots of viruses, Trojans, malwares, spywares etc. So it is risky to use the OS without a powerful antivirus which is always super expensive. Compared to other commercial OS’s, Windows seems to be slow and sluggish. The system crashes a lot and as Windows is really resource hungry, a high quality PC is needed to run it smoothly.

The OSX. A Macintosh is always geared by its OSX. Though recently apple gave support for Windows on their systems, a Mac is always built to use the OSX. So why do people use OSX. Macintosh computers are really beautiful things to look at and so is its OS. Humans always prefer to own and look at beautiful things. So a lot of mac users like to showoff theirs macs including its good looking OS. OSX users don’t encounter virus problems like the Windows users. And finally mac hardware tends to be really good which lets OSX users to run their systems longer.

So what’s against the OSX. The OS limited by apple to only run on their computers and comparing to PC’s a mac is really expensive. Like I mentioned before, people uses mac as a rather showoff thing than being productive. OSX doesn’t have much 3^rd party software like in Windows and Linux. When comparing to Windows and major Linux distributions, OSX is a really small OS. The OS mainly consists of apple’s services and in my point the whole OS is becoming rather a sync system for its iOS devices.

And finally, Linux. Linux may not be heard as much as we hear about Windows and OSX. This may be because Linux has many distributions to choose from, Including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, CentOS, MintOS, Arch Linux, Backtrack, Puppy Linux, Damn small Linux and hundreds of other distributions. Mostly Linux OS’s are free of charge. The whole OS is free and 99% of softwares created for the OS are without a price tag. This means if you own a PC, getting a Linux OS and garnishing it with your heart content softwares will cost you nothing more. And businesses will find it much cost effective to use unlike Windows where OS and office packages needs to be purchased for each and every computer. Linux offers them for free. Linux doesn’t require killer hardware to run on, though good hardware will improve the performance, even a 90’s computer can run Linux too. Linux is fast and smooth and not to mention a Linux user is not limited. Linux offers huge customization options. As Linux is an open source OS, a Linux user can see the source code of Linux packages and he/she can change it and can make it their own. A Linux OS can be run through both GUI (Graphical User Interface) and through terminal which is also known as Command Line. So if for some reason you prefer using the terminal like DOS (Disk Operating System) which is one of the first OS, you have that choice too. Unlike the Windows command line where usage is very limited, using the Linux terminal a user can do almost everything. Linux also offers varieties of GUI options like GNOME, KDE, MATE, XFACE and many more desktops to choose from. Just like OSX, Linux is virus free. So a Linux user needs not to invest on an expensive antivirus. And finally, Linux offers liveboot on all of its latest distributions where users can run a Linux OS without installing it. Liveboot is possible using both a flash drive and a disk. This not only helps users to checkout different OS’s but also users can carry their virtual pc on a flash drive and run it on their friends PC. Liveboot also makes it possible for users to run a Linux OS on a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) damaged PC.

Well, that was a lot for Linux. So let’s find out about its down turns. First of all, Linux distributions are developed by open source developer communities. They are not paid for what they do but are keen on to bring good free software for us users. So sometimes users may find some hardware on their PC unsupported and so it may not run as stable as Windows which provides support for almost every hardware available. Users will not find high-end games developed for Linux. And some Linux OS’s are not so user friendly, so a user may take a longer time to master it.

Well, that’s was my views about the three major OS’s available for computers. You may say I have favored on Linux more. That may be because I am a more of a free minded guy. Well, I use Windows and eight other Linux distributions on my computer. My brother has a MacBook which I use a lot. So I have experience on the three OS’s. I respect the hard work done by each company and communities on their OS. It is on your hands to take up any OS you like to run on your computer.