On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Jan L. Peterson wrote: > > 1) "Operating System" does not mean "what is essential for a computer > > to operate" or "what is a core component of the system". An Operating > > System is the memory-resident program that acts as a go-between for > > the user-land programs and the CPU, RAM, input devices, etc. > > I submit that what you have described here is the "kernel", a component > of an operating system. Linux, for example, is a kernel, while Debian, > RedHat, Solaris, HP-UX, etc. are operating systems.
I would submit to you that Debian and RedHat are "distributions", not Operating Systems. Now, the line at which something becomes an Operating System is not very clear ... a quick Google search defines Operating System as: ---- An operating system (sometimes abbreviated as "OS") is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer. The other programs are called applications or application programs. The application programs make use of the operating system by making requests for services through a defined application program interface (API). In addition, users can interact directly with the operating system through a user interface such as a command language or a graphical user interface (GUI). ---- To me, this implies that when users interact with particular UI, like a GUI (X-Windows) or a command-line interface (bash), that interface is _not_ considered part of the operating system. I would agree. This means that programs such as bash, sh, ls, vi, etc., are _not_ part of the Operating System, but they are means of communicating with the OS. Do you have, really, a "usable system" without these tools? No, not really. But that still doesn't make them part of the Operating System by any definition I've seen. /However/, the page that was posted a while back (http://www.topology.org/linux/lingl.html) points out that the "marketing definition" of an operating system is "that big bunch of software which comes from the OS vendor on CD-ROMs". I'm wagering that that's what you're thinking of when you talk about "Debian, RedHat, Solaris, HP-UX, etc." That's what most people think of when they think Operating System. But in the _technical_ sense of an operating system, things like compilers, text editors, GUIs, etc., are _not_ part of an operating system in the technical sense of the word. You don't learn about any of those things in your Operating Systems class--and they don't call it the Kernel class either. So, if you want to use the marketing definition of OS, that's fine, especially because you said you don't care about calling it GNU/Linux, and if you consider Linux to be a kernel only, then you'd call it GNU/Debian or GNU/Red Hat instead, and there would be no such thing in your mind as "the Linux operating system". Either way, GNU/Linux just doesn't make much sense. ~ ross -- This sentence would be seven words long if it were six words shorter. ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
