The computer's master control program. When a computer is turned on, a small "boot program" loads the operating system. Although additional system modules may be loaded as needed, the main part, known ...

Expertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. A traditional operating system (OS) such as Windows, macOS and Linux facilitates user ...

Linux is a tried-and-true, open-source operating system released in 1991 for computers, but its use has expanded to underpin systems for cars, phones, web servers and, more recently, networking gear.

With the growing popularity of inexpensive netbooks and nettop PCs, the Linux operating system (often installed on the lowest-priced budget units) is reaching a wider audience--although nowhere close ...

While Microsoft and Apple don’t release the source code for their operating systems, a good estimate is that it takes around 50 million lines of code to run these software behemoths. The Linux kernel ...