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12-19-2008, 01:48 AM
#23
echoSwe is offline echoSwe
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Originally Posted by unclekyky View Post
Our difference is just that of semantics it seems. In my view, an OS is a collection of programs, libraries and tools that offers an abstraction to the hardware (through the kernel). Its true, an OS facilitates the programming of the processor, but strictly calling it a program is like calling a consortium a company. In effect, a consortium is not a company, but rather multiple companies acting together.

Anyway, when linking to that post I was referring more to the general advice in the thread. I just linked to the first post with misleading information. There are many more examples like this I've run into recently, this was just one from this community that I read through only minutes before.
So you're saying operating systems have to be big? By what standard? What about mobile/sensor networks/smart dust research operating systems? Aren't they operating systems? http://www.tinyos.net/ for example? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinyos It's 579 812 bytes long, in its current size. I would wager to say, that's not a big collection of programs. And what about monolithic kernels where most of the actual OS is in kernel space?