::scr A PC user speaks

[Alaric Snell]

On Wednesday 27 March 2002 16:53, you wrote:
> on 27/3/02 4:10 pm, Simon Wistow at simon@thegestalt.org wrote:
> > ObAside: Just to get some terminology down, as far as I'm concerned
> >
> > OS == GUI + API + Kernel
>
> Shouldn't that be  OS == I + API + Kernel? My debian box doesn't have X
> installed for various reasons, the primary being that it's a server and
> router and doesn't need it.

I would include the user interface and utilities (y'know, file manager apps 
and editors for configuration files/registries and that lot) as not part of 
the OS at all, but part of the Operating Environment.

Why? Because one would hope you could strip them out for dedicated server 
installs and that kind of thing. Or replace them with your own favourite ones.

MS-DOS consisted of an operating system - stored in IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS - 
and a load of tools that made up an operating environment. OK?

Where to draw the line with Windows is a bit harder to figure out, since it 
comes with a load of things that *look* like applications but actually 
interface with the OS in ways beyond the documented APIs, I suspect. 
Otherwise they could all be trimmed off leaving a bare kernel (even if that 
kernel includes a windowing system and so on), and everyone would be using 
that for running Windows servers...

<pedantry>
And an API is not a 'thing', it's an interface. The kernel is the software 
that implements that interface, just as the 'GUI' listed above is probably 
really referring to a bit of software that implements a GUI.
</pedantry>

ABS

-- 
                               Alaric B. Snell
 http://www.alaric-snell.com/  http://RFC.net/  http://www.warhead.org.uk/
   Any sufficiently advanced technology can be emulated in software