Computer Basics: What is an Operating System?

Welcome to teachers using technology, computer basics, what is an operating system? After completing this tutorial, you will be able to identify the three major operating systems. Explain the basics of what an operating system does. And understand why knowing what operating system you are using is important. So let's start at the beginning. What is an operating system? If you look it up in the dictionary, the definition is the software that supports a computer's basic functions, such as scheduling, tasks, executing applications, and controlling peripherals. What does that really mean? The operating system is what makes your computer work. The way it works is by interpreting between you and your computer. Did you know that your computer only speaks in one's and zeros? It speaks a language called binary. And in all honesty, a computer actually understands about a hundred different commands. Well, if we had to sit down and work on our computers and type everything we wanted done in a series of ones and zeros, I don't think very many people would be using computers. So computer programmers created operating systems. They are languages for our computers that interprets between the binary and the language that we speak as the users of the computer. Different types of computers don't speak the same language. If you have an Apple computer and a PC or a personal computer like a Lenovo or an ace or something like that, your Apple and your PC will not talk to each other. They don't speak the same language. Along the same lines, if you have an acer computer and a Lenovo computer, one has windows, XP, and one has windows 8, they both speak the windows language, but they're speaking different dialects. It's like they're from different parts of the country. They're basically languages the same, but there are some words and phrases and nuances that may cause confusion. So what languages do our computers speak? There are hundreds of computer languages and a multitude of OSes out there. But there are three major ones that are operating in the world today. The first is Apple OSX stands for Apple operating system ten. That is the most current language that Apple has written for their computers. Microsoft has a program called Windows, and it's been around since the late 80s, and there are all different versions of it. And that's what PCs run is the Microsoft Windows. Then you have Linux. Linux is a open-source operating system. It means people in the community help contribute to it. And it has updates called kernels. Linux is not as widely used in the personal computer field right now, but it is making great headway as being the operating systems for computer servers for companies. So you want to be aware and know that it is out there and it exists. So what is a dialect? A dialect is a variation of a language. Computers have different dialects or different versions. Apple, like I said, apple is running OSX. The most recent version is OSX mountain lion. They've had other releases like snow leopard panther puma cheetah, kodiak, they're all part of all the language of OSX, but they're a little bit different dialect. If you have a computer running kodiak and you try and run a program that's been written for mountain lion, they're not going to talk to each other. Microsoft Windows is the most commonly used OS. Almost everybody knows how to use it. They're familiar with it. Most companies use it. So it is something that you want to make sure that you're familiar with. The current version of Windows is Windows 8. Occasionally you'll run into computers that are also running Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. Those are about the only OSes that are still being used on the window system. Linux is a little bit different from windows and the apple OS X reason being apple owns apple and all of its operating systems. And it licenses the use of its programming language, the same thing with Microsoft. They own all the windows products. Linux is community sourced. It's free. It's available to anyone anyone can use it. It's an operating system that relies on the contribution of a lot of different people in the community to help build it. So it has different distributors. And at the time that I created this video, I found almost a hundred, and I'm sure there's more than that. The only thing that's different about the distributors is the package management systems that they use, but once you put Linux on your computer, you have Linux and any program that uses Linux to run. We'll run on your computer. Some of the more commonly used Linux programs are boss, which is the barot operating system solutions. Ubuntu and Linux mint. So why does it really matter what language my computer speaks or what its dialect is? When computer programmers write a program like, say, Minecraft or word editing programs, they write it in a specific language and dialect. They may make it so that a couple of different versions of a computer operating system will be able to read it. But it's all for the same type of operating system or the same language. So say you go out and you're downloading Minecraft. And you have an Apple computer, but you download the version for Windows 7. That is not going to work on your computer. On the same token, if you are running a Windows 8 computer and you have an old disk of organ trail that your parents played in the 1980s and it's for Windows 3.1. Even though it's the same language, its Windows highly unlikely that organ trail disk is going to work on your Windows 8 machine or there's going to be a lot of problems. A lot of errors because it's not going to understand. Another way to think about the language is with your computers is say you walk into a Mexican restaurant. Are you going to order your food in German? Probably not because probably not speaking the same language. Be the same thing as trying to put a Microsoft program into an Apple computer or an apple program into a Linux computer. They're not going to understand each other. Let's take it down a little bit further to the dialects. If you bring somebody over from England, who speaks the perfect queen's English and their slaying and their variations of word use, and you drop them into the middle of the Southern United States, they both speak English, but they're different dialects. There's going to be some confusion in what somebody's asking for. So if somebody from England is asking for chips, somebody in the Southern United States would hand them a package of lace and what they're really talking about is French fries. It's the same thing if you try and put a program written for Windows 3.1 into a Windows 8 machine. Same language, but there's some misunderstanding there. So make sure when you're buying programs, you know what your operating system is and what version it is, because that will avoid confusion, and it will avoid buying programs that aren't going to work on your system. So we've learned that an operating system controls everything that goes onto your computer. And it acts as an interpreter between you, the user, and the computer that only speaks binary, and it's the language that goes between the two to tell the computer what you want it to do. Without an operating system, your computer can not run. Till why don't we just have one operating system? Why do we need to learn all these different things? Well, that would be the same thing as saying, well, everybody has to wear the same shoes or everybody has to have the same haircut. Or everyone has to have tattoos or no one can have tattoos. We all have our own personal preferences, and you need to find an operating system that works for you. Now in the real world we can't always do what we want because we have jobs and we live in polite society. So we have to conform in some ways to what's going on. The same thing is going on with the operating systems. You may be a rabid Linux user and you love it and that's all you want to use. But in reality, that's not widely used in the business world. So you probably should understand the basics of windows and the basics of map. Same thing, if you're a Mac user or a Windows user, you need to understand the basics of all three systems. You need to be able to identify when you're using a Apple system, a window system or a Linux system. And you need to know the basics about the setup. Just make you a more well rounded computer user and better prepare you for the real world.