Реферат: Microsoft Me Essay Research Paper MICROSOFT MEMicrosoft
An operating system is commonly known as Disk Operating System (DOS). DOS is not a programming language. In DOS, you work with commands. That is, you type certain things on a keyboard to give the computer its instructions. DOS was developed for IBM by Bill Gates and his new Microsoft Corporation. In the 1970s before the personal computer was invented, IBM had a different and unrelated DOS that ran on smaller business computers. It was replaced by IBM’s VSE operating system. (www.ceeprompt.com)
Although some experts are predicting the death of DOS, it is still the predominant operating system and a “working knowledge eases the frustration and increases the usefulness” of your PC. The DOS operating is relatively simple only after the user has mastered some basic commands and uses a computer on a fairly regular basis. Today, Windows operating systems continue to support DOS (or a DOS-like user interface) for special purposes by emulating the operating system.
With the popularity of Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT, some people might think that DOS would die fast. Not exactly! In spite of its abandonment by the major companies in the industry, software is still being developed and maintained for DOS.
CP/M
Gary Kildall developed CP/M, an operating system for personal computers. Widely adopted, CP/M made it possible for one version of a program to run on a variety of computers built around eight-bit microprocessors. It looks like DOS but only not so user friendly. Everyone using MS-DOS is still sort of working with CP/M without realizing it. Microsoft’s product is based upon nothing else but a CP/M derivate (www.gaby.de.com).
LINUX
Linux is an operating system that is clone written from UNIX. It was developed by Linus Torvalds and a team of programmers over the Internet (www.li.org). It contains all of the features that you would expect in not only a UNIX, but on any other operating system. Some of the features included are true multitasking and virtual memory. It is also the worlds fastest TCP/IP drivers and of course multi-user friendly, which means tons of people can use the computer at the same time.
Linux runs fully in protected mode, unlike Windows. It supports 32-bit and 64-bit multitasking. Most microsoft based programs will run under LINUX without any modification. LINUX distributions come completely pre configured to a factory configutration, and many distributions also have graphical based configuration utilities and installers.
The central nervous system of Linux is the kernel, the operating system code which runs the whole computer. The kernel is under constant development and is always available in both the latest stable release and the latest experimental release. Progress on development is very fast, and the recent 2.4-series kernels are simply amazing on all counts. The kernel design is modular, so that the actual OS code is very small yet able to load whatever functionality it needs when it needs it, and then free the memory afterwards. Because of this, the kernel remains small and fast yet highly extensible, in comparison to other operating systems which slow down the computer and waste memory by loading everything all the time, whether it is needed or not.
Linux systems excel in many areas, ranging from end-user concerns such as stability, speed, and ease of use, to serious concerns such as development and networking. Nowadays, Linux even offers a variety of commercial productivity packages and office suites which can import and export files from other platforms, including Windows and MacOS.
Linux has long been praised for its stability–Linux boxes are known for running months or even years at a time without crashing, freezing, or having to be rebooted. Linux users sometimes poke fun at other, less stable operating systems, by way of screensavers like BSOD (Blue Screen of Death, which displays crash screens from various other platforms) and games like XBill (where an evil virus masquerading as a popular operating system is causing machines to catch on fire).
Linux is Y2K-compliant, storing the date in a different way from other computers. (Its trouble date is 2038, by which time a small modification to the kernel should have solved the problem.) Also, because it is extremely secure compared to other platforms, viruses for Linux are practically non-existent.
Linux machines are also known to be extremely fast, because the operating system is very efficient at managing resources such as memory, CPU power, and disk space. More of the Web than one might expect is actually powered by old 486 boxes running Linux and the Apache Web Server, while NASA, Sandia, Fermilabs and others have built very powerful yet inexpensive supercomputers by creating clusters of Linux boxes running in parallel.
As for an intuitive graphical interface, Linux has at least a dozen different, highly configurable graphical interfaces (known as window managers) which run on top of XFree86, a free implementation of the X Window System. The most popular window managers at the moment are KDE (the K Desktop Environment) and GNOME (the GNU Network Object Model Environment). These offer the point-and-click, drag-and-drop functionality associated with other user-friendly environments (for example, Macintosh), but are extremely flexible and can take on a number of different looks and feels. If you want a Linux box running KDE to look just like a Mac, Windows, BeOS, or NextStep machine, you can do it with a few mouse clicks. Today, even complex tasks like system administration, package installation, upgrading, and network configuration can be done easily through graphical programs. Programs that work with one window manager nearly always work with all the others.
UNIX
UNIX was developed by Bell Labs in the early 1970’s. It s a multi-user, multitasking operating system. UNIX was designed to be a small, flexible system used exclusively by programmers. UNIX was one of the first operating systems to be written in a high-level programming language, namely C. (webopedia.com)
Being written in C programming language meant that it could be installed on almost any computer which a C complier existed. It was also very inexpensive. The UNIX operating system has been a product with four elements. They are; the specification, the technology, the registered trade mark, and the product.
It is common these days to read analysts’ accounts and IS professionals’ experiences that compare and contrast the UNIX system with Microsoft Corporation’s latest operating system, called Windows NT. Opinions vary, of course, but a number of common themes have emerged. The UNIX system today is available on a wide spectrum of computer hardware.
Particularly when high performance is at issue, hardware suppliers suggest the UNIX system, rather than Windows NT. The primary appeal of NT is for low-end, office-centered, departmental applications.
Unit shipment growth rates for Windows NT exceed the rates for the UNIX system, which is to be expected for a new product. However, revenue growth in UNIX systems sales is much higher than NT. It is reasonable to expect Windows NT to take a share in the operating systems market, along with other more specialized operating systems. There is no evidence today to indicate that NT will be dominant; in fact, most IT professionals predict that it will not.
Windows NT Server 4.0 is still not a full-function server operating system. While it does support multi-user computing via third-party add-on tools, it lacks certain fundamental features that the UNIX system is known for providing, such as directory services for managing user access and peripherals over a distributed enterprise network.
The presence of the UNIX system in the marketplace has been good for Windows NT. The UNIX system established the market for cross-platform client and server operating environments that NT seeks to address. In turn, NT will improve the market for UNIX systems in the future. That is, competition among UNIX system providers will be enhanced by competition with NT. The choice between open and proprietary products will be quite crisp.
The continuing success of the UNIX system should come as no surprise. No other operating environment enjoys the support of every major system supplier. Mention the UNIX system and IT professionals immediately think not only of the operating system itself, but also of the large family of hardware and application software that the UNIX system supports. In the IT marketplace, the UNIX system has been the catalyst for sweeping changes that have empowered consumers to seek the best-of-breed without the arbitrary constraints imposed by proprietary environments.
There is every reason to believe that the UNIX system will continue to be the platform of choice for innovative development. In the near term, for example, UNIX system vendors will define the scope of Java and provide the distributed computing environment into which the Network Computer terminal will fit and enable it to thrive and grow.
Today’s UNIX system is robust, scalable, and it continues to provide uniform access to a wide variety of computing hardware. For these reasons the UNIX system continues to be the operating system of choice for mission-critical systems. The UNIX system is the key enabler for enterprises that wish to keep switching costs as low as possible. That is, the UNIX system remains the only open alternative to locking in on a proprietary operating system.
Most importantly, the UNIX system continues to be a driving force for innovation because of its commitment to standards. When proprietary differences are set aside, and with the wide implementation of the Single UNIX Specification they are set aside, suppliers compete by adding value. This fundamental tenet is the reason that the UNIX system has thrived – and will continue to thrive in the years to come.
“Comparing Microsoft Windows NT Server to Novell NetWare 5.” 6 Sept. 2000.
.
Evans, Bob. “Unix vs. NT– The Right Platform.” 22 Aug. 2000. .