Operating Systems Comparing the MS-DOS,

Operating Systems Comparing the MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Linux and UNIX Operating Systems The intent of this analysis is to compare the major advantages and disadvantages of the MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Linux and UNIX operating systems. Each of these takes a completely different approach to managing memory, Input/Output (I/O) management, and the ability of users to customize them for their specific needs. Each also has found a unique role in the overall computing strategy of organizations as well.

Analysis of Operating Systems MS-DOS is credited with beginning the revolution from client/server architectures to PCs, changing the nature of enterprise computing forever. Its advantages include greater levels of backward compatibility of applications due to the Windows 16-bit Application Programming Interface (Win16) being a global development standard, a small footprint than any of the other operating systems in this analysis and the high degree of portability it provides. You can boot any PC running the MS-DOS directly from a floppy disk drive or a flash drive for embedded systems.

For all these advantages however, its memory architecture is the most limited of each in this analysis. It does not support multithreading, cannot manage multitasking at the level of Microsoft Windows, Linux or UNIX and also has severe RAM limitations, allowing only 640 KB in conventional memory workspace. This operating system is not well suited for the level of disk drive capacities today, as it can only support up to 7.8GB and only can see a logical disk drive of 2GB or less.

It also only assigns letters, not names or any other advanced logical functions, to a disk partition. It also cannot scale to support a networking configuration and cannot support TCP/IP at the baseline configuration. All of these limitations however served as an excellent catalyst for the growth of the operating system add-on industry, which lead to impressive levels of innovation over time. Microsoft made significant improvements in their operating system design when they transitioned from MS-DOS to the Microsoft Windows platform.

For the first time applications could share all the same system calls and APIs across all version of the operating system, cutting development time down by months (Bradley, 2009). This also lead to multithreading of applications, which in conjunction with the increases in microprocessor performance, significantly increased application depth and versatility as well. Based on the standardized APIs and the development of a shared memory architecture, Microsoft was very successful in their Independent Software Vendor (ISV) efforts to get new applications written.

For all these strengths, the Microsoft Windows had significant weaknesses as well. First, the entire scalability of the application was predicated on the Intel processor roadmap and how quickly the microprocessor manufacturer could revamp their product development timelines. Second, scalability continues to be an issue for this operating system as the clustering and virtualization available on Linux and UNIX has not fully been replicated on Windows yet. Third, there is little if any remote management or advanced directory services in the initial releases of this operating system.

Configuration of Microsoft Windows in more complex networking environments required an extensive amount of add-in software and programming to ensure all systems could work. Finally the levels of security inherent in the Microsoft Windows operating system continue to be problematic (Bradley, 2009). The Linux and UNIX operating systems are comparable in terms of kernel and memory architectures (MacKinnon, 1999)(Predd, Cass, 2005).

There are variations in the pricing models used for selling them, with Linux being open source and offered in a variety of distributions from leading open source providers including Red Hat (Predd, Cass, 2005). Linux has the strengths of being one of the more stable server-based operating systems given the architecture of its kernel and memory allocation algorithms (MacKinnon, 1999). Linux is more affordable than any of the operating systems in this analysis as well given the unique pricing structure of open source software (Predd, Cass, 2005).

Linux also has gained support of server-based application developers as well, with many of the worlds' most used and secure online ordering, distributed order management and supply chain integration systems running on Linux server software (MacKinnon, 1999). For all these strengths, Linux does have the depth of application tiles on the desktop that it has on the server platforms being sold today (Predd, Cass, 2005).

It also lacks the ease of use that the graphical interface of Windows has, and this is made very clear when comparing the latest editions of desktop Linux to Windows 7(Bradley, 2009). UNIX is considered the workhorse of enterprise operating systems, with proven ability to scale across multiple processors, a wealth of free software, and the ability to run on all major hardware platforms. UNIX is also considered to be one most effective operating.