Summary

Chapter 12: Advanced Operating Systems 3After completing this section, you will meet these objectives:■■Describe operating systemsDescribe network operating systemsDescribe Operating SystemsAn operating system is the interface between the user and the computer. Without an operatingsystem, the user would not be able to interact with the hardware or software on thecomputer. An operating system provides the following operational and organizational capabilities:■■■■Provides a bridge between the hardware and applicationsCreates a file system to store dataManages applicationsInterprets user commandsOperating systems have minimum requirements for hardware. Table 12-2 shows the minimumhardware requirements for several operating systems.Table 12-2OS Hardware RequirementsHardware Windows XP Mac OS X Linux UNIXCPU Intel Pentium/ PowerPC G3, G4, 486 or greater PA-RISC 1.1,Celeron family, or G5 processor processor PA-RISK 2.0,AMD K6/Athlon/Sun SPARCDuron family, orUltra 1, orcompatible; single-higher;or dual-processorPentium IIsystem; 300 MHz233 MHz oror higher higher (32-bit); Tru64CPU Alphaprocessor (64-bit); PowerPCprocessorMinimum 128 256 32 64RAM (MB)Minimum 1.5 3.0 3.5 1.0hard diskspace (GB)continues