Pos/420 Team
Running head: COMPARE AND CONTRAST UNIX AND WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEMS Compare and Contrast UNIX and Windows Operating Systems Debra Avent, William Brown, Antonio Gilbert and Nicole Wojasinski University of Phoenix Intro There are many operating systems in use today. In this paper we are going to compare and contrast UNIX and Windows. What is this UNIX and how does it compare and contrast with the Microsoft Windows operating system? UNIX 's biggest advantage is that its source is available to users so they may build a system to fit their needs. However, the user must have the education and experience of a compiler program to build the basic system, background in UNIX/Linux and the time it takes to build the system needed. One does not need much knowledge for the Microsoft operating system. It is built for users who have no skill, which makes it easier for the majority of people. Another area that truly makes a difference is support. With UNIX it is hard to find help. You will find that the cost of support is quite expensive, in fact. On the other hand, Windows experts are everywhere because they did not have to be super programmers before learning the Windows operating system. As far as software goes, UNIX is still growing and limited to free source. This is where you must choose to compile the program yourself or click and install. Can UNIX compete with Microsoft and cut into the market share? Cost of the Operating Systems UNIX is unique as it operates by itself and other operating systems take from it to operate. UNIX is free and can be downloaded. It is open source so it is the favored operating system in bigger businesses. This means there is no cost to the user to download and operate the software. Windows, in comparison cost the users one time licensing cost. That cost is dependent on how many users the system will have. When Windows is purchased for a personnel computer the cost is rolled up in the purchase price and will work on only
References: Meadors, T. (2003). Guide to UNIX Shell Script Programming. Canada: Course Technology Microsoft Corp (2007) from, Microsoft Help and Support: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919183 Microsoft Corp (2007) Microsoft. (2009). Windows Management Instrumentation. Retrieved August 31, 2009, from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394582%28VS.85%29.aspx Microsoft. (2009). Introducing Visual Studio. Retrieved August 31, 2009, from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fx6bk1f4.aspx Novell Inc. (2009). openSUSE 11.1 Hardware Requirements. Retrieved September 5, 2009, from Novel: http://www.novell.com/products/opensuse/sysreqs.html Red Hat Inc. (2009). Fedora Core 4 Release Notes. Retrieved September 5, 2009, from Fedora: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/fc4/#id2497259 Stanford University (2004)._Command-line shell versus Graphical User Interface (GUI_). Retrieved August 31, 2009 from http://pangea.stanford.edu/computerinfo/UNIX/overview/interface.html