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An operating system, or OS, is a software program that enables the computer hardware to communicate and operate with the computer software. Without a computer operating system, a computer would be useless.
Operating system types
As computers have progressed and developed so have the types of operating systems. Below is a basic list of the different types of operating systems and a few examples of operating systems that fall into each of the categories. Many computer operating systems will fall into more than one of the below categories.
GUI - Short for Graphical User Interface, a GUI Operating System contains graphics and icons and is commonly navigated by using a computer mouse.Below are some examples of GUI Operating Systems.
System 7.x
Windows 98
Windows CE
Below are some examples of multi-user operating systems.
Multiprocessing - An operating system capable of supporting and utilizing more than one computer processor. Below are some examples of multiprocessing operating systems.
Multitasking - An operating system that is capable of allowing multiple software processes to run at the same time. Below are some examples of multitasking operating systems.
Multithreading - Operating systems that allow different parts of a software program to run concurrently. Operating systems that would fall into this category are:
Below is a listing of many of the different types of operating systems available today, the dates they were released, the platforms they have been developed for and who developed them.
| Operating system | Date first released | Platform | Developer |
| AIX / AIXL | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | IBM |
| AmigaOS | Currently no AmigaOS operating system history. | Amiga | Commodore |
| BSD | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | BSD |
| Caldera Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | SCO |
| Corel Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Corel |
| Debian Linux` | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | GNU |
| DUnix | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Digital |
| DYNIX/ptx | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | IBM |
| HP-UX | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Hewlett Packard |
| IRIX | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | SGI |
| Kondara Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Kondara |
| Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Linus Torvalds |
| MAC OS 8 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| MAC OS 9 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| MAC OS 10 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| MAC OS X | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| Mandrake Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Mandrake |
| MINIX | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | MINIX |
| MS-DOS 1.x | MS-DOS history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| MS-DOS 2.x | MS-DOS history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| MS-DOS 3.x | MS-DOS history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| MS-DOS 4.x | MS-DOS history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| MS-DOS 5.x | MS-DOS history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| MS-DOS 6.x | MS-DOS history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| NEXTSTEP | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Various | Apple |
| OSF/1 | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | OSF |
| QNX | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | QNX |
| Red Hat Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Red Hat |
| SCO | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | SCO |
| Slackware Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Slackware |
| Sun Solaris | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Sun |
| SuSE Linux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | SuSE |
| System 1 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| System 2 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| System 3 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| System 4 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| System 6 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| System 7 | Apple operating system history can be found here. | Apple Macintosh | Apple |
| System V | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | System V |
| Tru64 Unix | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Digital |
| Turbolinux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Turbolinux |
| Ultrix | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Ultrix |
| Unisys | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Unisys |
| Unix | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Bell labs |
| UnixWare | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | UnixWare |
| VectorLinux | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | VectorLinux |
| Windows 2000 | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows 2003 | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows 3.X | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows 95 | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows 98 | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows CE | Windows history can be found here. | PDA | Microsoft |
| Windows ME | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows NT | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows Vista | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Windows XP | Windows history can be found here. | IBM / PC | Microsoft |
| Xenix | Unix / Linux history can be found here. | Various | Microsoft |
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