[geeks] Google announces Google Chrome OS

[Dan Sikorski]

Dave Fischer wrote:
> me at dansikorski.com writes:
>
>   
>> That's because Linux is just a kernel.  There are many OS's built on 
>> it.  Android is one, and there are many others.  You don't say that  
>> your PC runs NT 6.0.6001, or that your mac runs Darwin.
>>     
>
> Historically, at least some people defined "operating system" as just
> the kernel.
>
> Tanenbaum's "Modern Operating Systems", for example, explicitly
> says: "The operating system is the code that carries out the system
> calls.  Editors, compilers, assemblers, linkers, and command
> interpreteres are definitely not part of the operating system..."
>
> I haven't been able to figure out how widespread that definition
> was, or exactly when the Linux/gnu type usage became common.
> (I suspect it was a result of non-technical people using GUIs
> on PCs - a vague handwave towards the screen and "the operating
> system makes it all work" leads to a very loose understanding
> of the term...)
>
> Calling different Linux distros "different operating systems"
> annoys me to no end though. 
>
>   

Fair enough, I agree with all of that.  The original comment was that 
typical users will not recognize that their Android or "Chrome OS" 
devices are running Linux.  I was just trying to make a point that there 
is no difference between that and them not realizing that OSX is Darwin 
or Windows Vista is NT.  I should have chose better words.  The bottom 
line is, those types of users don't care what operating system is 
running.  It is taken for granted as long as their desktop environment 
abstracts it from them.  These are the same kind of people that will 
call the tower under their desk the CPU.  They don't care that the CPU 
is actually but one component in that box, they just care that you know 
what they meant when they said it.

    -Dan Sikorski