Today, we will be comparing the three major operating systems(OS) and their uses along with my interpretation regarding their current statuses. I will be addressing these OS at both the individual as well as corporate level. Before we begin, I would like to clarify that most of the statistics that you find in this essay are taken from the internet, however, the ideas of comparison and opinions expressed will be my sole responsibility.
Windows, in India and most of the world, and macOS(Or the Mac), for the US, is a household name. These OS’s came into existence during the early 1980s and have been trying to go head-on against each other since then. macOS was developed by Apple Inc, California and it runs on the Macintosh Computer. It was an OS based on the UNIX operating system which was developed during 1969 in Bell Laboratories. It is interesting to know that both Mac OS and the Linux share the same roots- both are based on the UNIX kernel. (A kernel is the basic lines of codes which are necessary for an operating system to work. You could think of it as the columns in a modern building.) On top of the UNIX kernel, the Apple computers have something called a ‘Desktop Environment’. A desktop environment is used by computer manufacturers to enable the user to interact with the computer. It can be used to perform tasks such as opening the file manager, surfing the web and others. We shall come back to Desktop Environments when we are discussing Linux.
Although Xerox PARC was the first computer to have the Graphical User Interface(GUI), it was the Mac OS that introduced this technology to the public. It was always Steve Jobs’s aim to bring the latest technology to the masses. A GUI lets a user use a pointing device(such as a mouse) to interact with the programs and use the computer. Before GUI, most computers used keyboards as input devices. The GUI and Desktop Environment work hand in hand to enable the user to use the computer. While the Desktop Environment is used to allocate particular space on the screen for particular programs and commands, the GUI uses references from the pointing device to interact with them.
Windows was in its development stages during the 1980s and Bill Gates had a good acquaintance with Steve Jobs. It was during this time that Microsoft had various deals with Apple regarding software collaborations and had access to the latest Macintosh computers. Microsoft was able to adopt this GUI into their Windows OS, although it was not as polished as the Apple’s Mac OS at the time. The move secured IBM as a permanent customer to Microsoft. (Microsoft was struggling with continuing their DOS operating system on IBM PC’s and needed a breakthrough to keep the momentum when they hit the GUI). Once Windows integrated the GUI in Windows 1.0, IBM dropped their work on a custom OS and adopted Windows in their PC line.
Linus Torvalds was a man who believed that software must be free of cost and he was the one who developed Linux in the year 1991. It began as a small project with Linus posting the source code(the lines of code that make up the software) on the internet and asking for suggestions to improve it. It was a code for the Kernel that Linus developed that eventually became the Linux operating system. Two things are basic when it comes to free software: it should be free of cost for anyone to install on any(compatible) computer and the source code should be free for anyone to modify according to their convenience and use/share it with others. Linus wanted his operating system to be free of cost(he was opposed to the commercial viewpoint of Apple and Microsoft) and free for anyone to modify.
What started as a mere 10,000 lines of code has now become a 15 million in the latest version. There are millions of active contributors to the source code, who upload them to a common server, and these get evaluated by senior contributors. It is Linus who eventually gets to decide which features(lines of codes) get implemented in the final version of the kernel. A majority of the contributors are software companies that use Linux and wish to develop it. According to the 2017 Linux Kernel Report, the top ten organizations supporting Linux kernel developments are Intel, Red Hat, Linaro, IBM, Samsung, SUSE, Google, AMD, Renesas, and Mellanox. Linux is dominantly used on the servers with almost 99% of them running a customized version. The main reason is the stability that Linux provides, it hardly crashes, needs little to no maintenance and can run for longer periods without rebooting. Typically Linux systems can run for years together without a need for a reboot.
Linux comes in many versions(also called Flavours). Notable versions of Linux include Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, OpenSUSE, Debian, Linux Mint. These are operating systems with the same kernel but with different desktop environments. For instance, Fedora comes with a default Desktop Environment that resembles the Windows XP style and has similar themes. Ubuntu comes with a dash on the left side of the screen which houses all the apps. Since the kernels of all these OS’s are the same, the apps that run on these machines are also interchangeable with little to no modification.
Windows has been the most dominant OS since its inception. This was partly because of the strategy implemented by Bill Gates. Gates negotiated a deal with IBM which allowed him to get a profit margin on every PC that was shipped with Windows. This was crucial when compared to Apple; they had to design the hardware, and the software whereas Microsoft needed to only develop and support Windows. This success was two-sided since Microsoft was able to license the same software to any company that could manufacture the hardware. Windows is currently the most used OS in the world with roughly 49% desktops and laptops running one or the other versions.
While Windows is predominantly used for office works, it is Mac OS that is the choice of OS for artists and other content creators. Take Final Cut Pro, for instance, a video editing software currently developed by Apple. It is the most widely used software for editing videos. Most of the Youtuber’s and similar others use this software to edit their videos. The features that this software provides are not found in any other and hence it attracts so many users. This software has been one of the major reasons for the Mac OS is popular in the content creators community. Other reasons include the portability of Mac machines, the battery life and the overall stability that these machines provide. Programmers also use Mac OS, mostly on desktops to develop programs. All iOS developers use Mac OS for the development of apps for the iPhone.
When using an operating system, one of the key parameters includes security. Windows has the most number of malware registered. This is partly because it is used widely and is lucrative for hackers to hack them and partly because at any given point in time, there are hardly two versions of Windows available. This makes it easy for hackers to develop malware to attack these machines. Other reasons include the lack of proper security while installing applications from unknown sources. Unlike Windows, Mac OS and Linux have better security. The reason being that these OS’s are built on the UNIX like kernel which has security built in it. Apart from this, the UNIX kernel and the Linux kernel needs an administrative password, unlike Windows, to install/update new software. This step makes sure that only the owner of the machine can install and update the systems and has full control over it.
We discussed the origin of three operating systems and how they have been developed and used for various purposes. We also looked at their target demographic and their revenue models. We discussed dominant OS’s and argued regarding their use for certain purposes. We have concluded this essay by discussing the security and the quoted various reasons regarding security on these Operating Systems.
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