Questions tagged [operating-systems]
The software layer between your hardware and application programs. It manages program scheduling, memory allocation, interrupt handling, disk input/output, graphic acceleration, hosting device drivers and various other resources.
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What does BeOS have to offer to todays users? [closed]
The operating system BeOS was in active development between 1995 and 2001.
POSIX compatible while not being unix based it was optimized for working with digital media.
Does this operating system ...
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What is C:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM
I've seen several articles on C:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM being either corrupt or missing but I've always been curious as to what the purpose of this file is, as well as the purpose of remainder ...
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Possible to Boot install OS (Ubuntu/Windows 7) from hard drive folders/partition?
So I've been installing OSes from USB for sometime. Now when I am using Ubuntu mainly with Windows sometimes, I wanted to have a way to have multiple OS installers in 1 USB or even internal hard drive....
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Is it possible to buy Windows 8 online as a digital download?
Is it possible to buy windows 8 online as a digital download? (the full install non-upgrade version)
Similar to the way windows 8 upgrade can be bought as a digital download from windows.microsoft....
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Install Chromium OS, but not from a USB
How can I install Chromium OS on my PC? I do not mean in a virtual machine, but actually a dual boot.
I know you can boot from a USB, but that is not what I'm looking for.
I really want to install ...
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How to install OpenWRT on an x86 computer with SATA hard drive
I've tried to install OpenWRT Backfire 10.03.1-rc6 x86_generic combined ext2 on my x86 PC, but the boot process stops while "waiting for root device /dev/sda2".
Forums have advised me to build a ...
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Does this mean that Tor saves private information?
I was going through my pagefile.sys system file (as I usually do) and found a few things of note. For example:
-----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY-----
...
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Which Linux distribution is Google Chrome OS based on?
I'm interested to know which Linux distribution the upcoming Google Chrome operating system will be based on. Does anyone know?
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What OS to use, or build myself, to just show a browser after starting up?
I was reading about Linux and found out that you can apparently custom build your own operating system.
The thing is, it all sounds great for what I would like to do but my knowledge in that area is ...
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How does operating system software maintains time clocks?
This may sound a bit less relevant but I couldn't think of a better place to ask this question.
Now consider this situation, you install an OS on your system, set the timezone and time, do some stuff ...
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Why is the system partition C:\? [duplicate]
How come that the system partition is C:\ and not A:\ or B:\?
I know A:\ was used for floppy drives, but why not use B:\ then? And why was floppy drives used as A:\ as if it was more important than ...
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How to Install Windows XP over Windows 7?
I have a Dell laptop that came pre-installed with Windows 7.
When I try to install Windows XP on it, Windows 7 does not allow me to.
I don't want a dual boot system, I just want Windows XP on my ...
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Why does 32-bit Windows impose a 2 GB process address space limit, but 64-bit Windows impose a 4GB limit?
I get that 2^32 = 4,294,967,296 and 2GB is for the OS and 2GB is for the process, but why does a 64 bit OS only give 4GB of address space? Should it not be 2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 which when ...
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Why do modern pre-emptive multitasking OSs hang when the CPU is loaded?
This is an open-ended question, with many possible answers, but perhaps there's one big thing I'm overlooking. If not, perhaps this question should be community wiki.
I don't use other OSs often ...
user49214
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What is a fast and modern OS for an old iBook G3? [closed]
I have a couple old iBooks G3 with 800 MHz, 256MB RAM and a CD drive.
I am looking for suggestions of what would be the best OS to install. The OS should have a modern web browser and be fast.
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32-bit to 64-bit skipping 48-bit?
Computer architecture upgraded from 16-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit. What was the logic for skipping 48-bit? What reasoning was used to upgrade to 64-bit and not some other exponent?
The following tables ...
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10,000 RPM HDD (WD VelociRaptor) vs SSD for OS?
I currently have a 10,00RPM 150GB Raptor that I use for Vista. I'm about to upgrade to Windows 7, and while doing that I thought I'd buy another drive and install Ubuntu 9.10 on it. I don't want to ...
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File sharing user limits
Each OS has a limit to the number of users that can access a computers shared folders at one time. XP has 10, 7 has 20. At one time I thought I saw a site where the limit for most OS's were listed. I'...
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How can I make my computer ask me which OS I want to load while booting?
I have 2 hard disk, one with one partition with OS, and the other with 2 partitions, one with OS and the other one whithout.
I want to be able to decide which OS I want to load each time I boot the ...
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List Of Free OS Or Technical Books [closed]
In the spirit of this question on stackoverflow.com I would like to compile a list of open source/creative commons/public domain technical guides. My original thought was to list books only for ...
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Is having more CPU cores a better thing for running a web server?
I was reading about how User threads are mapped to kernel threads on Wikipedia. From this article I understand that FreeBSD uses the 1:1 (Kernel-level threading).
So each User thread created by the ...
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Is Direct X available for Operating Systems other than Windows?
Is Direct X a software exclusively for Windows?
If so which software does the work of Direct X in other OS?
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Old Technologies About Floppy
I have a floppy disk with an unknown FS-(FileSystem). I want to make a copy from it but I can't because both Windows and Linux seem to be unable to read from it.
I tried many of the most popular apps ...
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Is there a performance difference when installing an OS on the last partition?
I have a laptop with Windows installed on a GPT hard drive. I want to have another partition to store data and yet another to install Linux Mint (or Ubuntu, still deciding). Should I install it on the ...
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How do multi-core CPUs work?
I know, vague question title, but my main question is, does 1 core have to execute only one program at a time? Does the "multitasking" at the CPU level work by switching between tasks, and if so, why? ...
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What is the recommend DPI for high definition screen 19" 1920x1080
I bought an nice laptop with a HD 1920x1080 screen. The problem is text is almost unreadable, it is tiny. So I scaled the DPI (dots per inch) up to make the text readable.
What is the recommend ...
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Can someone explain to me how the CPU finds the source of an interrupt in OS theory?
I am currently doing a module in Operating Systems theory and I have a few concepts that I am unable to grasp - would this be the right place to ask questions ?
My main question is about interrupts. ...
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Better Windows mouse sensitivity multiplier control?
(I know this question has been posted before; I reposted a more detailed explanation on the situation because the previous question isn't answered and has over 6k views.)
The mouse speed Windows ...
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How to port Firefox OS to ordinary computers? [closed]
I loved the B2G project. But unfortunately it only works with smartphones (ARM architecture). Although, some people are hacking its code in order to port it to other platforms (it's the case in this ...
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Swaping, Paging, Segmentation, and Virtual memory on x86 PM architecture
Well, this may seem a common or already asked question but after searching various books, online tutorials and even here on SU, I am still puzzled at how these four beasts work together on a x86 ...
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What is /com/host?
The Perl documentation for Sys::Hostname contains:
Attempts several methods of getting the system hostname [...]. It tries the first available of [blah blah] , and the file /com/host. If all that ...
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Removing near-duplicate rows in Filemon / Process Monitor to more easily analyze OS operations
Process Monitor allows great power when it comes to filtering, but it doesn't do something which seems extremely simple and beneficial, which is to simply allow the option to remove rows which are ...
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Is it possible to run a computer program without an operating system? [closed]
I'm wondering if it's possible to run a computer program without an operating system. Is there any way that this can be done?
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Do I have to make a partition before installing dual-boot Ubuntu?
I am trying to dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 10. On the guides I have seen online, people generally make a disk partition prior to installation. Then on the installation screen when they are asked ...
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Is there fusion drive style solution there for Linux and Windows?
Is there fusion drive style (like in iMac where the SSD acts as storage space rather than cache) solution there for Linux and Windows?
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Are operating systems able to run on different hardware?
My friend boots Linux from an external hard disk (500 GB). My question is he installs the operating system for one particular motherboard processor; the system may have additional stuff like a ...
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How to boot POP! OS in UEFI mode without disabling secure boot on my computer?
I installed POP! OS on my laptop a few days ago but secure boot wont let me boot it. I cant disable secure boot or UEFI mode because after installing a bios update my BIOS setup menu wont open anymore....
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How does SSH tunneling work at low level?
I am interested in the exact mechanism that occurs when an SSH tunnel is stablished.
Supposing we have 3 computers: LOCAL host, INTERMEDIATE host, and REMOTE host, with this topology:
Localhost --- ...
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If "top" indicates CPU is spending 10% on %wa (iowait), does that mean the CPU is idle?
I am referring to the Linux top command. If it indicates 10.4% was spent on wa, does that mean 10.4% CPU was available for other processes?
top - 09:40:45 up 178 days, 34 min, 1 user, load average:...
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How do I natively run linux on the Chromebook 15 (CB3-532)?
After experimenting with ChromeOS and Crouton, I made the decision to transition my Acer Chromebook 15 (CB3-532) to run just Linux.
During my research I realized that I would need to:
Enable ...
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Virtualizing a 32 bit guest on a 64 bit os
So I was wondering if anybody knew if there was any performance issues with virtualizing a 32 bit os, in my case 32 bit windows 7, on a 64 bit os, mac osX lion. I remember reading that running 32 bit ...
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Firefox OS (html5,js) vs Android (java) vs IOS (objective-c) In terms of pl and tech use, how can the other is faster? [closed]
How can be one faster than the others, what happens inside their code, is it a matter of the engine they are using? (noob about the gecko, linux kernel thing, educate me)
One of the limitations of web-...
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How can I disable automatic Windows 7/8/10 audio ducking?
Windows, apparently, has a built-in audio ducking feature which is very annoying (to me at least). When two or more audio sources are playing and the maximum audio volume exceeds 100% the OS applies a ...
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Is there a reason to install a 64bit OS on a computer with less than 4GB of RAM? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is there any benefit from installing Windows 7 64-bit when you have less than 4GB or RAM?
Hi everyone.
I have a computer with Arch Linux x64 on it and 3 GB of RAM.
Recently, ...
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What does the 'bit' mean in an OS
I know there are 32/64 bit OS in the market.
Q1-> But what does this bit mean actually ?
Q2-> What is the lowest bit OS and highest bit OS ?
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What part of a computer makes letters?
Like, in the olden day computers with DOS and stuff, they just showed fixed width letters on the screen...
What functional part of those computers had the job of displaying the physical characters, ...
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Are there hard drives that require additional software in order to function as a storage device?
Hard drives (both internal and external) are commonly advertised with catchphrases such as:
No additional software or drivers required
NTFS-formatted for Windows
Can be used on both ...
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What operating system can I use to turn my old computer into a home server?
I have a old desktop computer that I want to make a home server for file sharing purposes. It has 512 MB RAM and few GB of hard drive. Which operating system should be reasonable for this kind of slow ...
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I want to run an rsync command at midnight but make it stop at 8am. How can i schedule the start AND END of a command?
I want to run an rsync command at midnight but make it stop at 8am. How can i schedule the start AND END of a command?
I've looked into cronjobs but that will only start at a certain time. Any ideas ...
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How does a computer sleep/wait without using all of its processing power?
Something I've never quite understood is how a computer can operate without using all of its processing power. (Likely this confusion stems from a dreadful OS class in college.)
As far as I know, a ...
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