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What would you put in an OS?
Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:39 pm
by crazygray1
What do you think should be in every desktop OS? What features haven't been put in one that you think should?
Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 10:38 pm
by Bobalandi
In all os's there should be a text editor, no matter what, and then depending on who you're targeting, you should include compilers, or games, or office apps. It depends on who you would like to use your os
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:59 am
by Dex
I would say for a desktop OS, minimum is what you get with win98 as standard.
Plus a assembler or compiler.
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 2:23 am
by AndrewAPrice
A basic text editor, word process, drawing program, web browser, a game or two, etc.
The more the better!
Enough to perform the basic tasks a user would expect.
It depends if it's an office OS, a family-oriented OS, a power-user's OS.
e.g. a power-user's OS can come with a compiler, assembler, etc.
an office-OS could come with a simple spread sheet program.
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:06 am
by thegreatseph
I think this is largely a question of style, however here is my view on the subject:
Ideally you want a good user interface, be it command line or graphical or something different (I am using the Turbo Vision Unit in TP7 with some good results, as it is text mode, but still user friendly). The interface has to be intuitive, which is far more important than how good it looks.
Aside from a good UI, a good memory manager, something that will not make your computer slow after being on for a while, as desktop users power users and normal users alike tend to leave their computers on for long periods of time.
Then the other things you want to include are trivial, some tools to work with the file system, (Fdisk, format, etc) some tools to debug programs (Debug, gdb, etc) a Text editor or at least viewer (edit, vim, etc), a suite of tools for networking or internet is pretty obligatory (ppp, slip, lynx, etc).
I see an assembler as required (fasm,gas,etc), not a compiler though, my OS probably not going to come with one though that is because while it will be DOS compatible it will also be written in TP7 and only TP5.5 and below are freeware. It would be nice however to compile the kernel in the OS itself, the problem is unless you are making a DOS, A.out, ELF, etc compatible OS it gets very difficult as you pretty much have to write your own compiler, and while making a working compiler is a fairly trivial thing, making a good one is a very, very hard thing.
Everything else, games, media players, etc I see as fluff you probably want to distribute them with it to keep normal users happy, but normal users use windows, and occasionally linux, they will probably never be using the OSs developed here.