2.2: Types of Operating Systems

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What are the Types of Operating Systems

An Operating System performs all the basic tasks like managing file,process, and memory. Thus operating system acts as manager of all the resources, i.e. resource manager. Thus operating system becomes an interface between user and machine.

Types of Operating Systems: Some of the widely used operating systems are as follows-

1. Batch Operating System
This type of operating system does not interact with the computer directly. There is an operator which takes similar jobs having same requirement and group them into batches. It is the responsibility of operator to sort the jobs with similar needs.

A batch operating system takes one batch of jobs at a time, executes those jobs, then moves on to the next batch. It operates in a sequential manner - first batch submitted, first batch executed, first batch to complete, then moves on to the next batch. — Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Depiction of a batch operating system. ("A batch operating system" by akash1295, Geeks for Geeks is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Advantages of Batch Operating System:

It is very difficult to guess or know the time required by any job to complete. Processors of the batch systems know how long the job would be when it is in queue
Multiple users can share the batch systems
The idle time for batch system is very less
It is easy to manage large work repeatedly in batch systems

Disadvantages of Batch Operating System:

The computer operators should be well known with batch systems
Batch systems are hard to debug
It is sometime costly
The other jobs will have to wait for an unknown time if any job fails

Examples of Batch based Operating System: Payroll System, Bank Statements etc.

2. Time-Sharing Operating Systems
Each task is given some time to execute, so that all the tasks work smoothly. Each user gets time of CPU as they use single system. These systems are also known as Multitasking Systems. The task can be from single user or from different users also. The time that each task gets to execute is called quantum. After this time interval is over OS switches over to next task.

A time sharing operating system can run multiple jobs at the same time. Each job that is running gets a slice of time on the cpu. when that time is up, the next job gets a time slice. This makes much more efficient use of the cpu. — Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Time sharing Operating System. ("A time share operating system" by akash1295, Geeks for Geeks is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Advantages of Time-Sharing OS:

Each task gets an equal opportunity
Less chances of duplication of software
CPU idle time can be reduced

Disadvantages of Time-Sharing OS:

Reliability problem
One must have to take care of security and integrity of user programs and data
Data communication problem

Examples of Time-Sharing OSs are: Linux, Unix etc.

Adapted from:
"Types of Operating Systems" by akash1295, Geeks for Geeks is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0