Operating System Overview


Why do you need an operating system, and why are there so many choices? In this video, we’ll explain the importance of the operating system to the computing experience and give you a visual comparison of Apple Mac OS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows.

9 thoughts on “Operating System Overview”

  1. Matt Montgomery

    Couple of questions….I’m learning more and more about operating systems and I already own a PC and MAC. love them both. I am thinking of trying Linux. My question is, can you install this OS on either MAC or PC? also, does it just automatically override your current OS?

    1. Matt –

      I like using a virtual machine inside of your operating system to keep things simple. If you’re just getting started, you might want to try VirtualBox. VirtualBox is virtual machine software for Windows, Linux, MacOS (and others), and it’s absolutely free!

  2. First let me say thank you for making this series of videos. They are a great resource and extremely valuable in studying for the exam. Very well done.
    In the linux advatages section I think you may have misspoke when you said it works with a wide variety of software. Although there is a lot of software, I think you meant to say hardware.
    If you ever decide to do security + I’m sure it would be well received, and I hope you do.

    1. Charles –

      Linux has many advantages, but it suffers from a lack of support on hardware. There’s a diverse set of software available online for Linux, but you’d be surprised how few wireless cards and printers work with Linux compared to other operating systems. Here’s an article from Linux magazine that discusses the advantages that virtualization might bring to Linux’s hardware incompatibility problems.

  3. I had some issue with the statement that linu7x and windows has the same amount of security concern as windows where in fact there are less but thats been my experience so far over the last 4 years. I am definitely am using your video to get ready for my test Tuesday 7 2009.

  4. If you load Linux on your system, will it override your current OS, such as, Windows XP?

    1. Linux distribution Ubuntu 8.04 can be run inside windows xp like an application, if you wanna experiment with Linux I recommend doing it this way,or using it in a virtual machine like Mr.Messer recommended.

  5. Gil…

    I would agree with the running of Linux inside Virtual Box at first. Once you’re comfortable, AND you backup your Windows files, you can get an Ubuntu live cd, and set it up to dual boot Windows and Linux. Ubuntu is just one flavor of Linux, although a very popular one.

    I actually dualboot my desktop and laptop to XP, 7, and Ubuntu 9.10. You have to start with Windows on the machine first. Goto ubuntuforums.org for LOTS of info. Great, helpful people there.

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