From: magus@drktowr.chi.il.us (Louis Giliberto) Subject: Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Alpha release Linux/GNU/X unix clone on CDROM for PCs Date: 5 Dec 1992 01:04:31 GMT
Shane Bouslough (shane@cs.sunysb.edu) wrote:
: It needs DOS to perform many resource management functions (esp. disk)
: therefor it cannot be an os.
:
: -Shane
Huh? By that logic, DOS needs BIOS to perform many resource control functions
therefore it cannot be an OS.
You could also use that "logic" to argue that BSD or MSDOS for Mach is
not an operating system.
Technically, an operating system need only provide process control to
be an operating system. Device drivers (including memory management)
are merely specialized processes.
MS-Windows most certainly is an operating system whether it massages the
DMA or uses BIOS or uses DOS or even directly reads in bytes off the
controller in interrupt fashion. It merely uses DOS as part of a virtual
machine.
My $.02
-Louis