An operating system is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs

What is an Operating System?

An Operating System (OS) is a software that acts as an interface between computer hardware components and the user. Every computer system must have at least one operating system to run other programs. Applications like Browsers, MS Office, Notepad Games, etc., need some environment to run and perform its tasks.

The OS helps you to communicate with the computer without knowing how to speak the computer’s language. It is not possible for the user to use any computer or mobile device without having an operating system.

Features of Operating System (OS)

Here is a list important features of OS:

• Protected and supervisor mode
• Allows disk access and file systems Device drivers Networking Security
• Program Execution
• Memory management Virtual Memory Multitasking
• Handling I/O operations
• Manipulation of the file system
• Error Detection and handling
• Resource allocation
• Information and Resource Protection

Types of Operating System (OS)

Following are the popular types of Operating System:

• Batch Operating System
• Multitasking/Time Sharing OS
• Multiprocessing OS
• Real Time OS
• Distributed OS
• Network OS
• Mobile OS

Batch Operating System

Some computer processes are very lengthy and time-consuming. To speed the same process, a job with a similar type of needs are batched together and run as a group.

The user of a batch operating system never directly interacts with the computer. In this type of OS, every user prepares his or her job on an offline device like a punch card and submit it to the computer operator.

Multi-Tasking/Time-sharing Operating systems

Time-sharing operating system enables people located at a different terminal(shell) to use a single computer system at the same time. The processor time (CPU) which is shared among multiple users is termed as time sharing.

Real time OS

A real time operating system time interval to process and respond to inputs is very small. Examples: Military Software Systems, Space Software Systems are the Real time OS example.

Distributed Operating System

Distributed systems use many processors located in different machines to provide very fast computation to its users.

Network Operating System

Network Operating System runs on a server. It provides the capability to serve to manage data, user, groups, security, application, and other networking functions.

Mobile OS

Mobile operating systems are those OS which is especially that are designed to power smartphones, tablets, and wearables devices.

Some most famous mobile operating systems are Android and iOS, but others include BlackBerry, Web, and watchOS.

Apart from the above mentioned os,we also have windows,Linux and mac operating systems.

Functions of Operating System

Below are the main functions of Operating System:

In an operating system software performs each of the function:

1. Process management:- Process management helps OS to create and delete processes. It also provides mechanisms for synchronization and communication among processes.
2. Memory management:- Memory management module performs the task of allocation and de-allocation of memory space to programs in need of this resources.
3. File management:- It manages all the file-related activities such as organization storage, retrieval, naming, sharing, and protection of files.
4. Device Management: Device management keeps tracks of all devices. This module also responsible for this task is known as the I/O controller. It also performs the task of allocation and de-allocation of the devices.
5. I/O System Management: One of the main objects of any OS is to hide the peculiarities of that hardware devices from the user.
6. Secondary-Storage Management: Systems have several levels of storage which includes primary storage, secondary storage, and cache storage. Instructions and data must be stored in primary storage or cache so that a running program can reference it.
7. Security:- Security module protects the data and information of a computer system against malware threat and authorized access.
8. Command interpretation: This module is interpreting commands given by the and acting system resources to process that commands.
9. Networking: A distributed system is a group of processors which do not share memory, hardware devices, or a clock. The processors communicate with one another through the network.
10. Job accounting: Keeping track of time & resource used by various job and users.
11. Communication management: Coordination and assignment of compilers, interpreters, and another software resource of the various users of the computer systems.

Advantage of using Operating System

• Allows you to hide details of hardware by creating an abstraction
• Easy to use with a GUI
• Offers an environment in which a user may execute programs/applications
• The operating system must make sure that the computer system convenient to use
• Operating System acts as an intermediary among applications and the hardware components
• It provides the computer system resources with easy to use format
• Acts as an intermediator between all hardware’s and software’s of the system

Disadvantages of using Operating System

• If any issue occurs in OS, you may lose all the contents which have been stored in your system
• Operating system’s software is quite expensive for small size organization which adds burden on them. Example Windows
• It is never entirely secure as a threat can occur at any time

STEPS TO INSTALLING TWO OPERATING SYSTEMS IN ONE COMPUTER

For example,you may want to install windows and linux operating systems in one computer.

Install Linux Mint in dual boot with Windows:

Before we proceed to see the procedure to dual boot Linux Mint with Windows, let me give you some optional yet recommended safety instructions:

• Back up your data: You are going to touch disk partitions. Normally, it’s not a big issue but just in case if you touched wrong partition etc, you may lose data. So my advice is to back up your important files, documents, music, movies etc to an external disk or cloud, whichever suits you.
• Have a boot repair disk: If your boot gets messed up, you can try to repair it with boot repair disk. If you have an extra USB or CD, you can use that to create boot repair disk.
• Have a live or recovery disk of Windows ready: If your boot gets messed up and despite all efforts, you ended with an unbootable system, you can use the Windows disk to reinstall Windows.

I am not discouraging you. I am asking you to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Remember that this article applies to computers that have Windows 10 already installed on the system. You are installing Linux Mint on an already installed Windows system, not the other way round.

I have created a detailed video tutorial on installing Linux Mint alongside Windows 10. You can refer to it if you want to see all the steps in even more details.

Follow the steps below to install Linux Mint in dual boot with Windows:

Step 1: Create a live USB or disk

Go to Linux Mint website and download ISO file. This ISO file is the disk image that you can burn to a USB or DVD. Download Linux Mint

There are several versions of Linux Mint available. The default is Cinnamon. if your computer supports 64 bit go with 64 bit Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon. If you know about other desktop environments, you can make your mind and choose whichever Mint version you want.

Once you have downloaded the Linux Mint ISO, you need a tool to write the image to a disk. I recommend using a free tool called Universal USB Installer in Windows:Download Universal USB Installer

It’s an executable exe file. Just double click on it to run the software and browse it to the ISO. Make sure that you have your USB key plugged in:

Step 2: Make a new partition for Linux Mint

This is where you have to be cautious. If you have multiple partitions (not the recovery ones), you can either use one of them or create a new partition from an existing partition. Your existing data will be safe if you have enough free space. Typically, you install Linux in under 10 Gb, however, if disk space if not a concern, I advise using 30-40Gb at least. This way you can have more space at your disposal for downloading and keeping various files.

In Windows 10, go to start menu and type ‘partition’. This will bring up Disk Management utility.  Now carefully select the disk in which you’ll make some free space by shrinking the volume:

In my case, I only had the C Drive with 223Gb of space on it. So I shrunk it to make 110Gb of free partition on it. I recommend watch the video to see the exact steps you need more hint.

Step 3: Boot in to live USB

Plug the live USB or disk into the computer and restart the computer. While booting the computer press F10 or F12 function key (defers from computer to computer) to go to the boot menu. Now, choose the option to boot from USB or Removable Media.

Important Note: If your computer came with Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 and you upgraded your system to Windows 10, you may have to disable secure boot, most modern system with Windows 10 should not need this step, especially with Linux Mint or Ubuntu.

Step 4: Start the installation

It takes some time to boot from the live USB or disk. Have some patience. Once it boots in to live disk, you’ll be provided to Try Linux Mint or Install Linux Mint. Even if you choose to try it, you can find the install option on the desktop:

In next few screens, you’ll be asked to choose the language of the operating system. It will then do some checks on available space, battery and Internet connection.

Step 5: Prepare the partition

This is the most important part of the whole installation. Where to install Linux Mint?

If you see the option to Install Linux Mint alongside Windows, you can select that. Linux Mint will handle things on its own. If you do that, skip step 5 and step 6.

But as mentioned before, I prefer separate partitions for Windows and Linux. Windows is already installed here, we’ll prepare a new partition for Linux Mint. In the Installation Type window, choose Something Else:

Step 6: Create root, swap and home

Since you already created a new partition in Windows, it’s time to install Linux Mint on it. Now, there are several ways to do it. But here, I’ll show you my favorite way and that is to have a Root, a Swap and a Home.

Create a root partition first. Choose the free space available and click on +.

Here, choose the size of the root. Root is like your C drive in Windows. Installed software, updates and other system files are under this root partition. Home partition is for your personal documents, music, downloads etc.

If you have total 100 GB at disposal, give 30 GB to root. In any case, don’t give it less than 15 GB because if root runs out of space, your system will slow down and you’ll run into issues.

I opted to have 20 GB, choose ext4 file system, and mount point as / (i.e. root):

Now, next is to create the swap partition. Now the question is what should be the swap size for Linux Mint installation?

The answer depends upon your RAM size, your needs, available disk space and whether you would use hibernation or not. You can use the below suggestion:

• RAM less than 2 GB: Swap should be double the size of RAM
• RAM between 2 to 4 GB: Swap should be RAM size + 2 GB
• RAM between 6 GB to 8 GB: Swap should be size of RAM
• RAM more than 8 GB: Swap should be half the size of RAM or less

Don’t spend too much time thinking about swap. It is helpful for systems with less memory. For system with more than 8 GB of RAM and SSD, the less the swap, the better it is.

Newer version of Linux Mint utilize Swap file It creates a special file under root and utilizes it as swap area. You can have both swap partition and swap file in a system.

The next step is to create Home. Try to allocate the maximum size to Home because this is where you’ll be downloading and keeping the files.

Once you have created Root, Swap and Home partitions, click on Install Now button.

Step 7: Follow the trivial instructions

Technically, you have crossed the main hurdle if you reached this point successfully. Now you will be taken through a number of screens to select options like keyboard layout, login credentials etc. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out what to do here afterward. I have attached screenshots for reference purpose here.

Once the installation is over, you will be presented with the option to keep trying live version or to restart the system.

And that would be it. On next boot, you will see the option of Linux Mint on the grub screen. And thus you can enjoy the beautiful and beginner-friendly Linux distribution. I hope you found this guide to Linux Mint dual boot with Windows helpful. 

Drop your comment