Single-user, dedicated.
- I/O devices keyboards, mice, screens, printers
- User convenience and responsiveness
- Can adopt technology developed for larger system
- Previously thought,
- individuals have sole use of computer, do not need advanced CPU utilization, protection features
- still true? See next list of operating systems...
- May run several different types of OS (Windows, Mac OS X, UNIX, Linux)
- Operating systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS-X and Linux offer multitasking and virtual memory on PC hardware.
- The *BSD world has influenced the world of computing through networking advances, virtual file storage systems, dynamically self-optimizing resource allocation schemes, etc.
- While all *BSD systems have a family history derived from the original non-networking UNIX, Linux is mostly a ``work-alike'' re-implementation and can be traced back to MINIX which was developed by Tanenbaum for operating system teaching.
2004-05-25
