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Operating Systems and Software
By now you should have built (or bought) your shiny new computer. You have a big shiny box sitting in the corner of your room, or lying under your desk, which is good for almost precisely nothing... And that's the big problem with computers. It's a big dumb box that needs a set of instructions to tell it how to do things. Those instructions are programs and they come in two main flavours: operating systems and applications.
Operating Systems:
An operating system can be considered as a set of master instructions that perform the day-to-day management of the machine. It's the operating system that's responsible for interpreting commands from your keyboard and mouse and for driving your graphics card so that the results appear on your monitor. It is the operating system that's responsible for integrating all the components in your shiny new machine into a working whole. The operating system also provides you with your working environment (the window-based look and feel which is a common feature of all the main operating systems). In fact, the GUI (graphical user interface) is an add-on on top of the basic operating system but it's generally bundled as a part of it and has become so ubiquitous that it can be considered a major component of the OS itself.
In the main, there are two basic types of OS: the Windows family of operating systems (Win 95, 98, 2000, 2003 and XP) and the Unix family of operating systems (Mac OS, Linux, BSD). Of these Windows in its many flavours has by far the largest market share, almost by default (and possibly as a result is the most insecure OS being prone to many more virus/spyware attacks). Linux, though it can be freely downloaded and installed requires a little more knowledge to get it up and running (though the gap with windows is closing) and as a result it has almost entirely been relegated to a 'geek' fringe. Personally, however, I run Mac OSX, Windows 2000 and Mandrake Linux as well as Free BSD. Partly this is because I do a lot of work on the Unix platform but it's also because I want to ensure that my web pages work on as many different browsers and platforms as possible. However, as the Windows operating system is by far the most common I will say a few words about that platform next.
The Windows Family of Operating Systems:
The first 'true' version of Windows, Windows 2.0 was released in 1987 and though it relied very heavily on the venerable MS DOS disk operating system it did gain a modicum of commercial success. However, it was not until the release of Windows 3.0 1990 that the new operating system became a true commercial success. Like MS DOS, the early Windows releases were all 16-bit operating environments and were limited in the amount of memory they could access. It was not until the advent of Windows 3.x that Microsoft released an application that could access more memory and therefore could run multiple windows (and thus multiple applications) at the same time. This system is called co-operative multi-tasking and relied on a 32-bit kernel to the operating system (thus Windows 3.x was effectively a 16-bit/32-bit hybrid). However, Windows still relied on DOS for file management and it was not until the release of Windows 95 (in 1995) that the Windows OS was able to utilize long file names and lost its reliance on DOS. The most important development with this version of the OS being the ability to run 32-bit multi-threaded preemptively multitasked graphical programs (so that a presentation program such as PowerPoint could be run at the same time as a game). In 1998 Microsoft released Windows 98 which was updated as Windows 98SE (special edition) in 1999 and as Windows 98ME (Millennium Edition) in 2000 (though this latter incarnation of Windows 98 was not very well received, having Windows 98 at its core, but using the look-and-feel of Windows 2000. Almost concurrent with the release of ME Microsoft announced their forthcoming OS, Microsoft XP and thus ended the hybrid 16-bit/32-bit operating systems.
True 32-bit version of Windows have been around much longer than most people appreciate and they represent a complete re-build of the operating system with no DOS heritage whatsoever. Initially these operating systems were marketed as higher-reliability systems for business use. The first of these operating systems was Windows NT 3.1 released in 1993 (with NT standing for 'New Technologies'). Several releases of NT were made, culminating in the release of NT 4.0 in 1996 (an OS which had the look and feel of Windows 95). This marked the end of the direct development of Windows NT and the start of Microsoft's attempt to integrate their consumer and business operating systems. The result of this was the launch of Windows 2000. However, this OS failed to meed Microsoft's goals as a consumer product (partly due to the lack of driver software) and it was launched as a business system. Indeed, development of the home version of Windows 2000 (codenamed 'Neptune') was dropped and Windows ME was marketed in its place. Eventually, as things turned out the Neptune codebase was merged into their new project, called Whistler and this eventually evolved into Windows XP the first true 32-bit home operating system from Windows. Windows 2000 is now nearing the end of its lifecycle and has been replaced by the business system Windows Server 2003. Windows 2000 Professional did make a niche market for itself in the home-based marked, but its lifecycle is over in August 2006 and will no longer be supported by Microsoft beyond that date.
The next generation of Windows operating systems have been driven by advances in chip technology, with both AMD and Intel producing 64-bit processors. These processors overcome the RAM limitations of 32-bit systems (a hard limit of 8Gb) and also drive more data through the processor so that bigger tasks can be performed faster. Windows XP Itanium Edition (specifically designed for Intel's Itanium range of processors) as well as Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and Windows Server 2003 are the backbone of Microsoft's 64-bit operating systems with the Itanium Edition being released in 2002 and Windows XP Professional and Server 2003 x64 editions released in April 2005. Windows Vista the proposed successor to Windows XP is due for release in 2007 and will be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The time of the affordable 64-bit home computer is finally upon us.
Windows, What to Do:
After that potted history of Windows operating systems it should be fairly clear that if you're building a system from scratch you should no longer be putting Windows 95/98 on there as you will not be maximizing your performance. Windows 2000 is coming to the end of its lifecycle which only really leaves Windows XP for the home user. For the moment it's probably only worth buying a 32-bit version (even if you have a 64-bit system). Then you can upgrade to the appropriate version of Vista in 2007.
Once you have chosen your operating system and installed it you will need to install the drivers for all your components (you should have been supplied with disks for your motherboard and any add-on cards. Most of these come with on-screen help. Simply start your computer, put the appropriate disk in the DVD drive and follow the on-screen instructions. You will need to do this otherwise the various components will not function properly. If you have the option of seeing if an updated driver is available for one of the components you've installed is available, do so, as the driver updates will usually give you better performance and stability. Also check if there are any updates to your operating system as these will be bug fixes and security patches.
Once your operating system and all the drivers for each component you have have been installed you're now ready to start loading various applications onto your machine.
Unix
Of course, even if you have built what amounts to a standard PC you're not necessarily tied to the Windows operating system (though if you have designed your self a games machine you're pretty-much stuck with Windows). There are several free operating systems available based around the popular (and stable) server operating system called Unix. Over the years many flavours of *NIX have evolved and several of these are available for your PC. With a bit of thought it's even possible to have Windows and some flavour of Unix sitting happily next to one another on your machine so that you can either start up with Windows or with Unix as the need arises. Some of the more popular flavours or Unix for the PC are described below:
Linux
Linux began in 1991 as a hobby for Finnish student Linus Torvalds who released version 0.01 in September of the same year. This release allowed the freely-available open source GNU Bash shell. From the start Linux was distributed under the GPL (GNU General Public License) copyleft system that made the entire system both open source and freely available. This allowed a number of developers to work on the Linux kernel (the central component of the operating system) which was soon adapted to work with the GNU components and user-space programs to create a complete, fully functional, free operating system. In general Linux is predominantly delivered as part of a Linux distribution that includes additional system software and applications as well as a system to install these components onto a computer. Take-up of Linux has generally been slow as, in the past at least, a user needed significant knowledge of computers in order to configure the operating system. As a result users of Linux have tended to be more technologically knowledgeable than the users of other operating systems and Linux became branded as the OS for 'geeks'.
Though the general stereotype persists and Linux is still thought of as an operating system that's difficult to install. The reality, however, is quite different in that due significantly to the packaging of Linux into 'distributions' Linux has become far more user friendly and easy to install. Generally Linux has made considerable inroads into the server market and is gradually becoming the operating system of choice for image rendering and the provision of web services. It has even gained considerable popularity amongst web developers as both server-side and client-side applications and technologies can be tested using it. In fact Linux is entering the mainstream, with the PS3 game console running Linux out of the box. Even in the standard desktop environment Linux is making some inroads especially now that most distributions include desktop environments such as Gnome and KDE that make Linux more similar to Windows and Mac OS X. Indeed, some installations like Mandriva are as easy to install as traditional Windows and even come in a 64-bit version. Even the familiar Windows software have comparable Linux versions, such as OpenOffice as a (free) counterpart to Microsoft Office. The only problem with Linux being the support for new and potentially obscure hardware in that not all vendors provide Linux drivers for their hardware (though as Linux becomes more popular even this problem seems to be a diminishing one).
BSD
BDS (the Berkeley Software Distribution) is an Unix variant developed and distributed by the University of California, Berkeley during the 1970s. DBD itself grew out of PDP-11, installed at Berkeley in 1974. In 1977 this was extended to the first Berkeley Systems Database (1BSD). 2BSD was released the following year and this included a version of the command line editor, vi as well as the C shell (standard components of all Unix distributions today). 3BSD was released for the VAX computers, as was the next release 4.1BSD. 4.2BSD, released in 1983 included a major overhaul of the operating system including TCP/IP. 4.3BSD released in 1988 saw the move away from the ageing VAX environment, a move that saw the isolation of the machine-dependent code in the operating system and provided the basis for the range of systems based on BDS today. 4.3BSD was released generally. However, as it included proprietary code from AT&T this contravened the terms of AT&T's license and a version of BST termed Net/2 that re-implemented the standard Unix utilities without using the AT&T code was released in 1991. However, a few AT&T files remained and this embroiled BDS and its free descendants ported to the intel 80386 architecture (386BSD which led to FreeBSD and NetBSD) in a legal battle over the status of their codebase.
The lawsuit itself was settled in January 1994 and this led to a separation of codebases 4.4BSD-Lite containing no AT&T code and 4.4BSD-Encumbered containing the AT&T code and only available to those with AT&T licenses. The various free and open source variants of BSD (NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD) moved to 4.4BSD and continued along a separate development path.
For the home user, FreeBSD is probably the BSD-based operating system of choice. It is also compatible with most Linux binaries so that software pre-compiled for Linux will run out of the box. In addition the FreeBSD Ports Collection had amassed a considerably collection of open source software and ensured that it compiles on BSD. If you're a developer or are running memory-intensive applications then FreeBSD may well be the Operating System of choice for you. It should also be noted that FreeBSD forms the basis for the core of Apple's new OSX operating system.
Mac OS X
I am quite willing to admit that this is not an operating system that you'd expect to see on this list. However, it is an Unix-based operating system (descended from BSD) and its latest incarnation runs on Intel CPUs.
OS X grew out of Apple's search for a next generation operating system with pre-emptive multi-tasking and protected memory. They originally began developing this OS (codenamed Copeland) in-house, but with little success. Eventually Apple selected OPENSTEP (the BSD-based operating system developed by Steve Jobs' NeXT company) as their new OS and they purchased NeXT outright, bringing Steve Jobs back into the company where he later returned to the leadership of Apple. He shepherded the transformation of OPENSTEP (which was highly programmer-friendly) into a GUI-based operating system that could be used by Apple's core customer base of home users and creative professionals. The result was Mac OS X an unix-based operating system that also had a comprehensive windows-based interface (called Aqua) based on proprietary code added to it. As a result whilst looking to many like a standard windows-based OS, Mac OSX can also run and compile standard unix applications and can leverage the development effort in the Linux and BSD community.
Though originally developed for the Morotola/IBM G4 and G5 series of chips, Steve Jobs announced in June 2006 that Apple were transitioning their product line from PowerPC to Intel processors though these would be Apple x86 systems and not standard PCs. However, several people have reported that they have ported development versions of the Mac OS to run on standard x86 PCs. Watch this space...
Applications
The area of software is huge and can't really be covered in a fairly short primer such as this one. However, the type of software you're going to be installing should essentially have been considered in terms of the type of PC you're constructing. Have you designed a Small Business PC, a Photo-manipulation PC, a Games PC or an Internet Search PC a Developer's PC (or some combination of the former?). The type of software you will be buying (and the types software you won't) will be determined by what you're going to be doing with your PC. However, some of the more common application types are listed below:
E-mail client and Web Browser
If you have a Windows OS then you will get Microsoft Outlook as an e-mail client and Microsoft's Internet Explorer as your web browser as part of your operating system install. For most modern systems you will also have a number of fonts (including Unicode fonts needed to render text in the majority of the world's languages). However, because of the security problems with Internet Explorer you may wish to consider an alternate browser such as Mozilla, Firefox or Opera which are currently more secure than Internet Explorer and more standards compliant (this may change with IE7 but we'll have to wait for that to become available).
Anti-virus Software
If you have a Windows-based PC then you are under threat from Viruses, Worms and Trojans as well as Spyware and Adware. As a result you will need software that optimally provides you with a firewall, protects you against viruses and which also protects you against spyware. You can either buy this as part of a single package such as Symantec AntiVirus or McAfee Virex or you can buy separate components (one for firewall one for anti-virus and one for anti-spyware).
Office Software
Microsoft's Office suite of products (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) have become almost ubiquitous tools on the desktop. If you're going to be writing documents then you will need word. If you have any spreadsheet-based analysis to do then you will need Excel and if you're going to be giving presentations you'll need PowerPoints. All three products can be bought together as Microsoft Office however, if you only need one of these tools then you can also buy them separately. They are all good at what they do and word can generate very good document layouts. However, if your document generation demands are larger than lots of text (such as producing a newsletter or complex flysheet) then you might want to consider a page layout product such as Adobe's InDesign. This will allow you to play with text and images to produce precisely the layout you need to make professional-looking documents.
Digital Darkroom
The advent of affordable digital cameras and relatively cheap high-quality printers has yielded a phenomenon called the 'Digital Darkroom'. Whilst many digital cameras come with software that allow you to save images to your PC, to do some manipulation of those images and then to print them out onto high-quality paper (and this is fine for many users) you may want to do more with your images such as remove blemishes, join images together and to crate special effects you will need a high-end image manipulation program such as Adobe's PhotoShop (which, whilst expensive, is undoubtedly the premiere image manipulation application).
DVD
Just as you can link a digital camera to your PC you can also link digital camcorders. This allows you to save your home movies onto the PC's hard disk and then use video manipulation software (such as Final Cut Studio or Adobe Premiere) to add titles and to merge video sequences together so that you can generate your own home movie. This can then be burnt to DVD and played on a regular DVD player.
Games
The range of game titles is an ever increasing and expanding one and the type of games you chose will depend on your own attitude and style. Games titles range from Action and Arcade titles through Adventure, Role Playing Games, Board and Card Games to Simulations, Sports titles and Strategy Games. Essentially there's something here for everyone.
Development
If you're serious about developing software on your machine then you have everything from Visual Basic (which comes with the Pro version of Office) to Java development environments (such as Borland's JBuilder) or Microsoft's visual C++ builder for c/c++. There are also very good open source offerings such as Eclipse which is a development environment written in Java that can accommodate most languages. You also have scripting languages such as Perl/Python/Tcl available for Windows systems.
Network Software
This is one of the latest developments in software. Companies such as Google are pushing it hard with their Google Pack software suite: Here the software is kept on Google's servers which you access to run the programs but your data is held locally. The Google Pack contains all the usual text and image editing packages as well as calender, graphing, presentation and image editing software. If you're on a budget (or even if you're not) it's a software solution that's well worth looking at.
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