Once upon a time, there were these bunches of people that got together and developed ways to ask an electronic machine to do their work. They designed a certain ‘friendly’ ways to interface the user and the machine, calling the interface as ‘Operating System’.

There were different machines and different user interfaces. From the well known DOS, to the more ancient Applesoft, Atari, Commodore, Unix as well as the later OS/2, Linux, the current Microsoft Windows and Mac OS etc. Please don’t forget about the PalmOS on your PDAs, Symbian, Windows CE and Mobiles. They are OSes too!

They have come a long way.

Most of the time, when you install an operating system into a PC, it will take control of the hardwares entirely or almost entirely. From then on, your operations will depend on how powerful the operating system is able to take control of the hardwares.

And some people think that you should pay them for the ‘operating system’ in order to interface with your computer easily. But some other people think otherwise.

The Unix people thought otherwise and created a branch of operating system, free for all. It has undergone lots of improvement and is now comparable to other commercialised operating system. They call it Ubuntu.