Comparison Of Linux And Windows Essay For Managing Network Servers.

This assignment is designed to assess students’ knowledge and skills related to the following learning outcomes:
a) Understand various server management systems
b) Manage emerging tools and techniques for system management

This assignment provides students with in depth knowledge and advanced professional skills to manage and maintain network servers. Students will be able to enquire some of the windows, Linux and other Operating System features, various performance Monitoring Systems and other software related to system management. They will also be able to know about the various tasks performed by the system administrator. In addition to that, the overview of the modern day operating systems is also necessary to keep up with the current trend. This assignment is designed to acquire a theoretical view of the existing features of Server operating system such as windows and Linux and compare them.
Submission Guidelines:
Your report should include the following:
A cover page (topic name and assignment title), identifying student (name and ID),name of the lecturer and name of the tutor.
The assignment must use 11-pt Calibri (Body) font and at least 1.5 cm line spacing with appropriate section headings.
Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using IEEE reference style.
It should follow standard report guidelines. 

Operating system is a specific program that is intended to control the hardware of the computer and behaves as a mediator between the hardware and user. Linux and windows operating systems are two different systems that have numerous differences. The major difference among both is that Linux is completely free and Windows is quite costly and a marketable operating system [1]. This assignment discusses regarding two trends on operating system named, mobile operating system and Kernel operating system.   

Background       

                Linux operating system is built around the Linux kernel. The particular defining component of the Linux operating system is the operating system named Linux Kernel which was first released in September 17, 1991. Linux is a specific open source operating system; in this users are able to access the source code and are also able to improve that particular code with the use of that system. Microsoft Windows is considered as a specific family of operating systems that is introduced for personal computers. There are numerous operating system for handheld devices, mobile and services developed by Microsoft. In windows operating system, users are not allowed to access the source code and the user needs to be licensed in order to use this operating system.

Explanation of the topic

Mobile operating system

                Like the Linux operating system and Windows operating system controls the laptop or desktop of the user, a mobile operating system is a specific software platform where various programs are allowed to run on the mobile devices. This operating system is able to determine the features and functions available on the users’ device like thumb wheel, WAP, keyboards and many more [2]. Various mobile operating systems include Android and iOS.

Windows operating system

Devices that usually run on Windows can be considered as successor of operating system Windows Mobile of the developer of software Microsoft [4]. Microsoft has a low market share compared to other mobile operating systems.

Technical details

                The architecture of mobile operating systems is mentioned below.

Mobile OS: Android

• Has a modified Linux Kernel.
• Has an open source Libraries which are coded in C++ and C.
• An Android Runtime.
• An Application Framework.
• The required applications.

Mobile OS: iOS

This operating system is only used for numerous Apple devices such as iPhone. Its market share has been growing continuously since few years. The features of this operating system include.

• The core OS is the Kernel operating system.
• The basic services include Fundamental system-services that are further divided into various frameworks and are based on Objective C and C.
• It considers the high level framework that is responsible for the usage of video and audio technologies and graphics [3].
• The operating system includes a UIKIT that is a framework which is based on Objective C and gives access to various functionalities that are required for the development of the application of iOS such as User Interface Management.

                Various devices like computers and Phones that run on windows operating system, uses tools and technologies that are also used in applications that are station based such as Frameworks Silverlight, .NET Compact, XNA and Visual Studio.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Linux operating system

• Linux operating system includes a wide range of options; these options are available to various users and increased security.
• Various distributions are available for the end users.
• Security is one of the major advantages of Linux operating system [5]. The flaws related to security are caught before they become an issue for the organization.

Windows operating system

• There have been numerous advancements in the Windows operating system which has made the usage of the system very reliable.
• There are numerous Microsoft users; as a result, there are more software programs, utilities, games for windows.
• Almost all the hardware manufacturers would support the Microsoft Windows. Due to this, all hardware devices are supported.

Disadvantages

Linux operating system

• The main issue in Linux operating system is regarding drivers [6]. Before any user can install any sort of hardware component in their computer, the user should make sure that the hardware has required drivers.
• Most of the hardware might not seem to be compatible with Linux in case the user decides to switch.
• Unlike Windows operating system, Linux does not usually support out of the box. The companies need to pay a specific amount of fees for the support if they are unable to solve a particular issue.

Windows operating system

• Microsoft operating system is more costly when compared to Linux operating system because every license cost around $50, 00- $ 100. 00.
• When Windows operating system is compared to Linux, it is more prone to attacks and viruses.
• This operating system needs to be rebooted time to time else there might be a possibility that the system would hang up.

Improvements on the topic that has been made

Linux Kernel improvements

• The creator of Linux operating system had released new Linux 2.6.35 kernel which provides the users of open source operating system with various networking capabilities as well as performance with improvements in file system.
• The main improvement in Linux operating system is the 2.6. 35 Linux Kernel include the incoming network traffic features regarding load-spreading like Receive Flow Steering (RFS), Receive Packet Steering (RPS) [7]. These aim in improving the performance. These enhancements have been contributed by the search engine named Google.

Windows operating system improvements

• Cortana is one of the improvements in this field. This is the assistant of Windows phone which is available for Windows 10 in the form of a search pane on taskbar [8]. With the use of this, users can trigger it just by saying “Hey Cortana” when the user starts searching in the start menu.
• Users of Windows operating systems are allowed to set reminders for various times as well as places which appear on other Cortana gadgets, in this way the user can get their Microsoft band to remind them to take the dustbin outside when the user walks up to their front door.

Conclusion

                Usually users seek for an operating system that is reliable to use and provides proper modification for making its performance better. On the other hand, various organizations and businesses that work at a specific scale do not have options far from Linux because using the Windows operating system in these situations would limit the scope of making new and easy modifications more than they want it. Linux as well as Windows operating system provide numerous advantages as well as disadvantages; they also have improved to a great extent. These points have been mentioned above in details.

References

[1] S Abraham, G Gagne, and P. B. Galvin. Operating system concepts. Wiley, 2018.

[2] K Granino Interactive Dynamic-System Simulation. Crc Press, 2016.

[3] A Madhavapeddy and D Scott. "Unikernels: the rise of the virtual library operating system." Communications of the ACM 57.1 (2014): 61-69.

[4] P Claus. "Containerization and the paas cloud." IEEE Cloud Computing 2.3 (2015): 24-31.

[5] K. Divya, and V. K. Kumar. "Comparative analysis of smart phone operating systems android, apple ios and windows." International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Applied Science (IJSEAS) 2.2 (2016): 432-439.

[6] B Antonio, et al. "An os-level framework for anomaly detection in complex software systems." IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 12.3 (2015): 366-372.

[7] L Michael Hale, et al. The art of memory forensics: detecting malware and threats in windows, linux, and Mac memory. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

[8] S George "Crystal structure refinement with SHELXL." Acta Crystallographica Section C: Structural Chemistry 71.1 (2015): 3-8.