Do Operating Systems Matter Anymore?
on 08.19.06, 09:50pm in computers, mac, windows • share on facebook • comments (6)
The other day, a colleague and I were discussing the various shortcomings and benefits of operating systems. While this included both Vista and OS X (Tiger and/or Leopard), one of the themes we kept circling around was the question: "do operating systems really matter any more?" or is the real value and advances of the next generation of OS’s really just the software that’s on top of it?
Thoughts?
mattbg (August 20, 2006 @ 7:47 am)
I think that operating systems do matter.
Devices are one reason where it matters, and having solid drivers, or offering the facility of reducing complexity in the drivers. The operating system can make the difference between a device being easy to install and operate, and making it too tedious to do the same (which, in turn, can mean the difference between success and failure of a product). For example, the WIA interface for scanners and cameras in Windows. This interface could be duplicated each and every time for each and every imaging device out there, but standardized interfaces make it much easier to work with the devices.
I’d say something like DirectX on Windows is important — each and every release of DirectX supports corresponding advancements in the hardware, and this makes better software possible. Also, the incorporation of DirectX into Windows made the determination of which hardware would support which software much less confusing.
And, what about something like WinFX? I haven’t really seen much of WinFX firsthand, but this is an example of how an operating system component can allow more compelling software.
Also, security. Without appropriate support in the operating system for secure operation, security is very difficult to achieve. We will supposedly see this in the contrast between Windows XP and Vista.
Steve (August 20, 2006 @ 8:41 am)
Matt – While I hear what you’re saying regarding security and device driver interface, WinFX and DirectX are just software stacks on top of the OS.
mattbg (August 20, 2006 @ 9:12 am)
Steve — personally, I thought it was a grey area. When you buy “Windows, the operating system”, for example, those components are a part of it, and they’re not a part of any other operating system. If those things are all stacks on top of the OS, then isn’t the Win32 API also a stack on top of the OS? In that case, I would say that, for most people, the OS doesn’t matter.
For realtime applications, the operating system matters.
What about the differences between Mac OS X and Windows XP with respect to the monolithic vs. micro kernels and the corresponding performance differences? I don’t really know if anyone cares, so I also get your point as far as that is concerned…
I do tend to think that maybe your definition of “operating system” is too narrow. When you ask, “is the real value and advances of the next generation of OS’s really just the software that’s on top of it?”, anything that positively of negatively affects that stacked software’s ability to do its job on top of the OS becomes a part of the OS, in my opinion.
I don’t know much about Vista development, but from what I’ve heard, their approach of refactoring the kernel and shuffling things in and out of user mode seems like change to the OS that will have a postive impact on the performance and stability of the system — a competitive advantage borne from change to the OS. Something like kernel streaming in WDM audio drivers makes a big difference — it was the difference between usable software synthesizers, and unusable software synthesizers.
Randy (August 20, 2006 @ 1:53 pm)
They shouldn’t matter. In fact, technologically speaking all of the major OS’s are on an even playing field. I know the AppleHeads and the PenguinThumpers just shat themselves at me saying that Windows, OSX, and [insert a Unix flavor here] are about equal, but they are. The thing that makes one more valuable than the other are the applications that sit on top of them. Be it apps included with the OS or other third party applications, that’s what it’s coming down to now.
And the sooner digital people stop fighting about OS’s the way medieval people did religion, that happier I’ll be.
Of course, developer support comes into play as well. With my experience I can whip up an app in Windows in minutes but I’m totally lost in OSX and Linux; other coders have the opposite skills, as they’ve had years of experience in OSX and can’t do anything in Window. The point is that all of the major players have strong support for developer efforts these days. Of course that OSX can add whatever apps they want without fear of legal issues (and Windows appearantly cannot) that’s a whole other issue.
Ken Partridge (August 20, 2006 @ 10:17 pm)
It comes down to this for me. For the Kids computer, does it run the games they want ? For my does it run Microsoft Office.
No matter what i do, if I am stupid on my computer, bas things will happens. Wether its Windows, Mac or Linux.
If the kids can run everything (including Videos) on nickjr, cartoonnetwork.com and disneychannel.com. Then its a done deal.
gdkzen (August 21, 2006 @ 7:54 pm)
Applications are always the driving factor in the adoption of any technology. The issue with OS’s has been that for many years OS’s have been so primitive that they are a limiting factor in the effectiveness of applications.
Example – remember back to the rotten-old-days before multitasking (or even Win3.0 fake-multitasking). The primitive (by today’s standards) OS forced users to specifically devote their hardware to a specific application. This was a problem because human beings typically multitask by nature, and adopting to a different method of work was largely inconvenient for people. I would go so far as to say that PC’s would never become ubiquitous without the necessary advances in OS design.
OS’s therefore become irrelevant when they have reached a point where their “people literacy” has reached its apex. I don’t think this has happened yet. We are still bound by fairly old input devices (mouse and keyboard), and there is still a large portion of the population that avoid PC’s (and I use the term PC broadly – referring to any microcomputer actually) because they refuse to adapt to a technology that they know will eventually adapt to them.
My father can replace the valves on a truck engine (an incredibly complex operation) but barely has the motivation to turn a PC on. Why? Because he can get somebody else to do it for him – in other words he has a human that interfaces with the OS for him!