This is a paper I wrote last semester for one of my classes. Since the length of the assignment was to be two pages in length, I had to skip over many of the issues involved with this subject. Most notably missing are discussions of user interface and development tools available. Nevertheless, I felt it was worth posting for anyone who cares to read.
Two operating systems in wide use on the PC today are Windows 95 and Linux. Windows 95 was created by Microsoft Corporation. Linux was not created by a corporation, but by a large group of volunteers. These operating systems have different assets, different methods of distribution, and appeal to different types of people. Below, a few aspects of each one will be considered briefly.
Linux began as an experiment in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, who was, at that time, a college student in Finland. He shared his project with others on the Internet, and soon they became interested and began to help. In the following years, the popularity of Linux ballooned as hundreds of people helped to develop Linux into a stable, usable operating system, and others wrote a multitude of utilities and software which increased its usefulness. Now, millions of people internationally use Linux for their everyday computing tasks.
Initially, Linux had absolutely no marketing campaign, as it was not a commercial product, but a community venture. The only promotion it received was the word of mouth passed from one PC enthusiast to another, usually via the Internet. However, as its popularity grew, several companies began to commercially promote and distribute Linux on CD-ROM.
As far as software goes, Linux is compatible with Unix, so it can run the variety of software written for other Unix platforms with little or no modification to the source code. Most software available for Linux can be obtained free of charge over the Internet, supplied by programmers who initially created it for their own use, and went on to share it with the general public. While the number commercially produced consumer applications for Linux is growing, it is minuscule compared to the volume of products available for Windows. There are projects underway to create emulators which allow Linux to run DOS and Windows programs, but currently they only run some programs with success.
When it comes to reliability Linux is a highly stable operating system to run. Many people run it continuously for weeks, months, or even years on end without a single reboot, provided the system administrator knows what (s)he is doing. This is due to its secure kernel, which features full-fledged memory protection, which keeps programs from corrupting memory that is not their own. The operating system also deallocates any resources, such as memory, left open by a program when it terminates. In other words, Linux makes it virtually impossible for a program run by a user to threaten system integrity.
While Linus Torvalds programmed and coordinated the development of Linux in his spare time, Bill Gates was masterminding a project which was then titled "Chicago" as a successor to the aging Windows 3.1. Chicago, which would become Windows 95, was developed by a large team of software designers, who, unlike Linux developers, were hired by one company to create an operating system. In their attempt to create a more intuitive user interface, Windows 95 developers tested it on hundreds of office workers whose reactions were observed while they used the new operating system. In early 1995, a few months before it was unveiled to the masses, Windows 95 was distributed to several thousand beta testers in order to weed out potential bugs. Finally, on August 24, 1995, it was released, with a great deal of hype and fanfare, to the general public for the first time, whereas Linux had been available to the general public all along.
Unlike Linux, which depends on loyal users for its promotion, Windows 95 has a multimillion dollar marketing campaign behind it. On the day it was released, Microsoft hired celebrities such as Jay Leno to help introduce it. Flashy television ads were flooded across television screens nationwide months after Windows 95 hit the shelves. The contextually meaningless phrase "Where do you want to go today?" was used as a selling point for this new product. It worked.
While Linux retail software is quite sparse, Windows 95 has a large amount of commercial software written for it. It is considered the standard for software marketers. In any major software retailer, such as Computer City, aisles upon aisles of shelves contain software for Windows.
When it comes to system integrity, Windows 95 is much less stable than Linux. One program which writes to a bad memory address can bring down the entire system. Even otherwise clean programs that don't deallocate memory upon completion can cause a general protection fault after several of them are loaded and unloaded from memory repeatedly. Shared libraries complicate the problem by occupying memory when called, and remaining there even after the calling program has terminated. For practical use, a Windows 95 system must be rebooted periodically, while Linux has no such requirements.
Linux is in many ways technically superior, but Windows 95 has the lion's share of the operating system market. Microsoft's marketing juggernaut has made it the standard for the PC. Those who enjoy looking under the hood, compiling their own kernel, trying out various window managers, and legally "sharing" their operating system with others choose Linux. People who like buying lots of software at the store and don't want to be bothered with configuration files frequently are probably happier with Windows 95. Both operating systems are great achievements, but they excel in different areas.
This document was created under the Linux operating system