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Questions tagged [operating-systems]

The software layer between your hardware and application programs. It manages program scheduling, memory allocation, interrupt handling, disk input/output, graphic acceleration, hosting device drivers and various other resources.

Common features:

Some well-known operating systems and their distributions, in alphabetical order:

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Before Operating systems, What concept was used to make them work?

The Operating systems have been tightly related to the computer architecture.An OS takes care for all input and output in a computer system. It manages users, processes, memory management, printing, telecommunication, networking etc.It sends data to…
Dharma
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How can I determine the OS of a remote computer?

How can I determine the OS of a remote computer, given its computer name?
Steve
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What is it that makes Windows require constant rebooting while Linux does not?

Like many people, I run dual systems on my computer. Important updates require constant reboots on Windows, while I don't think this ever happened to me on Linux. What properties of each OS decides whether or not this is possible?
Benjamin Lindqvist
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Current operating systems for an 80286 PC

I just managed to resurrect an old 80286/10MHz PC with 2 MB of RAM that had died from an expired PSU capacitor. I am looking for an operating system that could run on that hardware. Preferably something with networking capabilities, since I have an…
thkala
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What does the term "OS rot" refer to?

I'm asking because I just saw a question about the "Best way to avoid OS Rot in Windows 7" and had never heard of the term "OS Rot" before. It's semi-comprehensible from context in that question, but I thought I'd ask it as a separate question for…
Pops
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How are page files stored on hard drives?

Just as RAM is divided into frames, the logical address space is divided into pages and the secondary storage into blocks of the same size. Pages are very small in size, 4 kB or so, and are swapped out when needed and stored as pagefiles. All easy…
A User
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ISO image of Operating Systems

What is meant by an ISO image of a Operating System? How can I make an ISO of an OS? When would you use ISO images of an OS?
Guruprasad
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Theoretically possible to run two operating systems simultaneously?

A friend of mine asked a question that got me thinking. Is it possible (theoretically, I assume it hasn't been done) to run two operating systems simultaneously on the same computer? Not in the sense of multitasking in one window, but being able to…
jrdioko
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Calculating bits of RAM

Consider I have 30-bit RAM to calculate its size: 2^30 = 1073741824 / 10^9 = 1GB What if I had for example 512 MB RAM is there formula to convert it to n-bit ? this is might be noob question but I'm not good with math :/
user
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Is it possible to run a computer program without an operating system?

I'm wondering if it's possible to run a computer program without an operating system. Is there any way that this can be done?
Anderson Green
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What is /com/host?

The Perl documentation for Sys::Hostname contains: Attempts several methods of getting the system hostname [...]. It tries the first available of [blah blah] , and the file /com/host. If all that fails it croaks. What systems is this /com/host…
u1686_grawity
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What does the 'bit' mean in an OS

I know there are 32/64 bit OS in the market. Q1-> But what does this bit mean actually ? Q2-> What is the lowest bit OS and highest bit OS ?
Sourav
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How does a single processor execute the Operating System as well as the user program Simultaneously?

Okay as we know that a single processor can execute one instruction at one time, which means a single processor can execute either the Operating system's instruction or the user program's instruction at one time. Now how is it possible that an…
Ahti
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Operating system not found

I have installed original Windows 8 to my laptop. Today, when I start my laptop I am getting "Operating system not found" in black screen. What is the reason for this? Can anyone give any advice? Is the hard-disk crashed or are there some issues…
Manan
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How many Operating Systems allowed in a single computer

How many operating systems are allowed in a single computer. Is any extra RAM is need for each extra operating system?
suresh gopal
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