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It is possible. MS just have to specify the interface as kinda wrapper, and make the real DLL replaceable.
Direct X works this way: it specify the Interfaces, and the hardware itself is replaceable.
bugKilla
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"OSs should provide a rich set of APIs for programmers, and a very limited set of tools for users"
This is what I wish MS would do. Provide programmers with a rich set of Internet access APIs - for example - but don't force us to depend on the existence of an application (IE) that is a free replacement for a commercial app (Navigator). Of course I'm reaching back a few years for this example, but I hope everyone gets the idea.
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I always thought it was odd that the OS should specifiy the GUI , the conclusion I came to way way back was that it forced the user to the GUI, for most ignorant users the GUI is the OS . They neither know or care what the difference is , it is the functionality of the PC that they want not the underlying technical details. MS new this in the early days and tied the GUI to the OS rather than take an X windows approach of a seperate OS and GUI manager . To seperate them now would be a problem , no doubt , but it appears to me to have been a clear design decision back in Windows 1.0 to wrap the OS and the GUI . When the OS became a preemptive multitasker they had another opportunity to split them out and decided not to . Now they are either too far down this road to make a split desirable , or they realise that the keeping the GUI and the OS in one basket gives them a lot more leverage than the sum of the two.
Ain't nobody ever told you : There ain't no sanity clause .Groucho Marks
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MS new this in the early days and tied the GUI to the OS rather than take an X windows approach of a seperate OS and GUI manager.
From day one, the GUI has always sat on top of the OS. When Windows 1 came out they created OS style API routines as wrappers around the old INT routine methods of doing everything. However, the line became more blurred in 9x.
But when you look at NT, the line is hard and fast. Core OS on one side (NT Kernel) and Win32 GUI on the other. The early versions of NT support OS/2 and Posix applications.
To seperate them now would be a problem , no doubt , but it appears to me to have been a clear design decision back in Windows 1.0 to wrap the OS and the GUI.
To remove Win32 would be trivial. But it wouldn't be much of an OS. But nobody is even talking about that. They are talking about removing portions of the GUI. Breaking it up into small bits and making them all selectable. There is a huge difference between the two.
Tim Smith
I know what you're thinking punk, you're thinking did he spell check this document? Well, to tell you the truth I kinda forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this here's CodeProject, the most powerful forums in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question, Do I feel lucky? Well do ya punk?
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Thanks for the clarification . I always assumed that windows forced you to use one GUI and you could not use someone elses . If the OS and the GUI were partitioned in this way why is it that no one seems to have even attempted to flog their GUI on top of the MS OS ?
Ain't nobody ever told you : There ain't no sanity clause .Groucho Marks
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I see why some people would want to do this for single-purpose machines (Point-Of-Sale for instance), but for the average user -- the vast majority of the people who BUY software -- they interact with the OS in a very limited fashion. AND they like it that way. They just want the OS to serve up applications for them and make interaction seem like a seamless part of the process.
Why would we want it any other way?
And by the way people do override the GUI of Windows for specific-purpose machines, like cash registers, touch screen boxes, and ATM's. You just have to mess with the way windows loads itself, not very user-friendly I will admit.
Sef Tarbell
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade, it makes the hand bleed that wields it." --Rabindranath Tagore
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I would like the maker of the OS I use to have to freedom to add any new feature which will make it easier/quicker/nicer to do certain things.
Yet as a user, if I don't like the new feature I want to be able to remove/replace or disable it.
Just my humble option.
Funny Scotty, now beam down my clothes!!!
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i think the same
no reason to disable existence of parts at setup cds
but why it is necessary to install them?
(and than delete them manualy with tricks against automated reinstall)
t!
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Colin bought up a good point about OS's vs Shells. Where does one finish and the other begin? Traditionally OS's were fairly bare-bones affairs with a command line, and the shell did the fun stuff. However, (so far) not a single person has voted that OS's should be bare bones, so what constitues an OS?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote:
so what constitues an OS?
The kernel + fancy stuff is the short answer.
I am too illiterate to give the long answer
Nish
Regards,
Nish
Native CPian.
Born and brought up on CP.
With the CP blood in him.
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AFAIK, the shell is what the user sees; the OS is what the programmer sees. (the OS is also what the user buys...)
Not that any of this matters much unless the OS is modular enough to allow programs to function when the shell is removed/replaced.
--------
I am not a connoisseur. --Shog9 --
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I think with windows the line between the shell and the OS is very blury. Because when you upgrade your version of IE, are you updating the OS or the shell. It was my understanding that when I upgrade IE, I am upgrading an application, however I get a new version of User32.dll, which is part of the OS, and sometimes the shell is also updated.
I do believe that an OS is what mamages the resources on your PC, and the Shell allows you to access and control the OS. When we are talking about Microsoft, however, they sell an OS + small software library.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day
Light a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life!
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The notion that the shell and OS are separate is a holdover from Unix days, and died with the introduction of the Mac. The shell now provides fundamental services to programmers that were undreamed of in the days of pure command-line interfaces.
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I think people get way to hung up on this OS vs. GUI vs. shell stuff. It all boils down to what is expected functionallity of the OS out of the box. For most users, that is Windows with IE and media player. For us geeks, we probably could deal without a lot of the extra junk. For system managers of servers, they would probably love to hack out 50% of the junk MS ships with the OS.
Tim Smith
I know what you're thinking punk, you're thinking did he spell check this document? Well, to tell you the truth I kinda forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this here's CodeProject, the most powerful forums in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question, Do I feel lucky? Well do ya punk?
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Command line isn't part of the OS IMHO. Many systems operate just fine without a command line.
Tim Smith
I know what you're thinking punk, you're thinking did he spell check this document? Well, to tell you the truth I kinda forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this here's CodeProject, the most powerful forums in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question, Do I feel lucky? Well do ya punk?
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Chris Maunder wrote:
Colin bought up a good point about OS's vs Shells. Where does one finish and the other begin? Traditionally OS's were fairly bare-bones affairs with a command line, and the shell did the fun stuff.
OS doesn't have any relation to shell. As an example, check tcsh. It compiles with almost no changes on dozens of OSes.
The question should be stated in a different way: What user expects from OS? Scientific view of OS is easy - Common interface to hardware and standard set of protocols (the second part is late edition). The problem is that it is useless to the common user. A user expects a set of applications for its most casual uses. Those include browser, email client and media player among others. The problem isn't modularity of Windows as an OS, but Windows as a consumer product.
Windows is extremelly modular. More than Linux today. It is among the few real OSes capable providing different programming layers - Win32, DOS, OS/2 and Posix. Windows kernel can be ported to any hardware you may wish.
The problem is higher levels, which has very little to OS. Removing IE wont do any damage to Windows as an OS, but it will destroy Windows as a consumer product. I think it very important difference.
Felix.
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I think that a very simple Operating System that supports basic operations and with no UI can be used just for educational reasons (in universityes, schools). Commercial OS's like MS Windows, Apple, that are designed to be used by all users, at all evels of knowledge should include all the facilities. Let's not forget that these systems are installed by default when a computer is bought.
Of course it should be modulars, but I don't think that these systems would survive without all these facilities.
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Yet 6 people have voted for [3]
Regards,
Nish
Native CPian.
Born and brought up on CP.
With the CP blood in him.
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Thats because the survey is asking two different types of questions:
1, 2) Wouldn;t it be nice if companies did ________.
3) The law should make a company do ________.
That makes the answer only obvious depending on which question you decide to answer
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day
Light a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life!
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kilowatt wrote:
That makes the answer only obvious depending on which question you decide to answer
Oh! Thanks. I didnt think of that.
Nish
Regards,
Nish
Native CPian.
Born and brought up on CP.
With the CP blood in him.
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No, I disagree, it means only 6 people got the answer correct.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
More about me
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Colin Davies wrote:
No, I disagree, it means only 6 people got the answer correct.
blast!!!!!
Nish
Regards,
Nish
Native CPian.
Born and brought up on CP.
With the CP blood in him.
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Why is the middle the obvious choice?
What if you were given the choice of a modular OS vs an OS that was faster, had more functionality, had a smaller footprint and was more reliable? I'm not saying a modular OS is any worse than a black box, but think about some of the problems that may come up. Conversely - there are a ton of advantages to modular OS's as well...
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote:
Why is the middle the obvious choice?
Cause option(3) does not say that the applications that come with the OS are replaceable by other apps.
Nish
Regards,
Nish
Native CPian.
Born and brought up on CP.
With the CP blood in him.
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