Overview

Operating System is an example of System Software. An operating system is a collection of software that handles computer device hardware resources and offers general services for other application software to run on the OS platform.

 

Operating Systems Examples

There are different types of operating systems, they are as follows:

• Character Based OS
• Graphic User Interface OS
• Personal Computer OS
• Network OS
• Mobile OS
• Embedded
• Real-time OS
• Distributed

Character-Based Operating System

Provide an interface to the user through a set of commands.

Examples: MS-DOS, UNIX.

GUI Operating System

A Graphic User Interface operating system provides an interface through a set of icons and GUI windows. These operating systems are interactive and user-friendly. The operating system can support either single-user or multi-user.

Some of the of GUI based operating systems are as follows:

• Microsoft Windows
• Apple’s Mac O, iOS
• Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, Cent OS
• Google’s Android
• iOS

Windows 7 Operating system screenshot:

PC Operating System

Personal Computer operating systems work on personal computers(PCs)

Examples: Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, Windows 7, 10, 11, Linux distributions, etc.

Network Operating System

A network operating system includes special functions for connecting computers and devices into a Local-Area Network (LAN).

Examples: Novell Netware, Artisoft’s LANtastic, Microsoft Windows Server, Windows NT, SUN Solaris, etc.