Detailed Introduction to Operating Systems
Hola! This post is about operating systems and how I started with Windows XP as my first OS, with an Intel Pentium processor powerful enough to run 16 bit calculations. And its insane how I could never figure out how these architectural bits worked. I had my hands on 32 bit of version Windows 7 for an year after which I had my first laptop which was also Pentium CPU. It was a Windows 8.1 64 bit laptop, and unexpectedly threw up blue screen errors which were due to driver failures. That is when I started self debugging and also when I first installed GNU Linux as dual boot.
Hola! This post is about operating systems and how I started with Windows XP as my first OS, with an Intel Pentium processor powerful enough to run 16 bit calculations. And its insane how I could never figure out how these architectural bits worked. I had my hands on 32 bit of version Windows 7 for an year after which I had my first laptop which was also Pentium CPU. It was a Windows 8.1 64 bit laptop, and unexpectedly threw up blue screen errors which were due to driver failures. That is when I started self debugging and also when I first installed GNU Linux as dual boot.
I will try to explain most of the concepts in this one post, expect this post to get overwhelming, needless to say you can read it again or drop a comment in case anything bothers you.
BIOS/UEFI
Firmware is what controls your system even before its booted, and in case of computers its either basic input/output system (BIOS) or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). By the name, UEFI is the superior firmware type that supports modern systems and BIOS is a basic legacy firmware. EEPROM is the module/chip that is storing instructions for the firmware to execute, by name it is read only memory module and any changes to it are made using CMOS setup utility, this is from where you enable virtualization support, toggle TPM support, USB boot toggle, secure boot toggle, boot priority and much more. These changes are stored in another module called NVRAM. If your BIOS doesn't show an option that you need there is heavy chance the manufacturer of the system released an update for BIOS and installing this update is called flashing.
System Memory (RAM)
This is where software running on your system is copied for faster access by CPU and GPU. More the memory, more simultaneous processes and software your system can run. RAM has many generations from DDR1 to DDR4 RAM. There are RAMs that support ECC(error correcting code) and some RDIMM (registered or buffered) or UDIMM (unregistered or non buffered). You don't need to remember any of this, this is just to give you an idea that while buying RAMs you should get one that is specific to your system/motherboard. Your system performance increases with RAM but only by a rate of minimum memory requirements of the operating system you are using.
Processor (CPU)
This is where all the calculations take place, there are multiple types of CPU with different sockets from AMD and Intel both, then there are multiple generations of each of these types. This means upgrading a CPU is much more specific than other components. Speed of processors is measured by their frequency, cache memory and cores. Cores refers to multiple CPUs combined as one CPU, this wouldn't increase the performance a lot but when working on multiple heavy threads like virtualization you'll see an increase. Architecture of CPU is also very important, if its a 64 bit processor, always install 64 bit operating system and software on it. There is another feature called EDB or execute disable bit which prevents malware by restricting access to memory areas on a CPU level. Going ahead, CPUs have integrated graphics now, particularly AMD which offers range of CPUs with Vega graphics.
Hard Drive
This is where all the files are saved. The operating system is installed in this drive. This is another flexible component of your system and you can upgrade to a SSD which is solid state drive which doesn't move while its being used. It offers much faster read write rate than traditional HDDs which have physical movement. There can be multiple hard drives installed in one system, we always make sure that operating system is installed in the SSD which significantly drops boot time and application loading time.
Bootloader and Kernel
This is the part of operating system that loads it. Job of bootloader is to boot the operating system kernel which continues with the init (initialization). Kernel is built with many instructions for the specific operating system, its job is to load drivers, create an interface channel for software to communicate with the hardware.
Operating Systems
There are many operating systems like Windows, MacOS, Linux. Each of these have advantages and disadvantages over each other. Linux offers endless customization and full control over OS with maximum privacy. And there's windows that has built its own subsystem for Linux (WSL). It ultimately depends on user's preference to choose their operating system while there are also many users who go for dual boot configuration where they keep their windows installation and install second operating system. This can be easy or difficult depending upon the bios vendor. While doing so you might have to disable secure and fast boot in your BIOS. USB 2.0 ports are usually preferred when booting from a USB.
Do tell me in comments if you want more detailed posts like this.
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