The more processors an operating system runs on, the more variety
of choices of vendors and the greater the scale (large to small
systems) available. LINUX is the “king” of variety,
running on almost every processor made.
The more processors an operating system runs on, the more variety
of choices of vendors and the greater the scale (large to small
systems) available. LINUX is the “king” of variety,
running on almost every processor made.
Note that just because an operating system runs on a particular
processor, it does not necessarily mean that it runs on every
computer model that uses that processor. The “devil is in
the details”. Not all operating systems run well on multiple
platforms. As an example, Microsoft ported their Windows NT
operating system to several different processors in a highly
publicized move to demonstrate their cross-platform capabilities,
but then quietly dropped some platforms and has poorly supported
any platform other than the Intel Pentium (I won’t get into
debates about the criticism that Windows NT doesn’t run well
on its main platform either).
The main advantage of using just one operating system throughout an organization is increased compatibility and increased uniformity. This should (but doesn’t always) reduce training costs, reduce support costs, and increase group productivity.
In practice, the same operating system does not always work the same on different hardware platforms. Often there is a great variance in the quality of the implementation across different hardware and sometimes different feature sets are available. Also, software written for a particular operating system is not always available on every hardware platform that OS runs on.
Some organizations thrive on a mixed operating system environment. Each operating system/hardware combination has its own unique set of advantages and disadvantages. There is no such thing as a universal “best” for all applications.
A classic example is
that many Windows-only organizations make an exception for
content creation machines, which are usually Macintoshes.
Another classic example is high end
animation and motion picture special effects, where a combination
of Windows/Intel, Apple Macintosh, SGI IRIX/MIPS, Sun
Solaris/SPARC, and DEC Alpha machines is common, each doing key
parts of the total job.
In a mixed operating system environment, connectivity becomes extremely important.
It does not matter if an operating system runs on processors you never intend to use. The most common desktop processors are the Pentium and the PowerPC. The most common high end server processors are the SPARC, Alpha, HP-RISC, and MIPS.
Operating systems that run on Intel Pentium: Rhapsody, BeOS, BSDI
Internet Super Server, FreeBSD, LINUX, NetBSD, NetWare, NeXT,
NeXTSTEP, OpenBSD, OpenSTEP, OS/2, Solaris, Windows NT Server
Enterprise Edition, Windows NT Server 4.0, Windows 98, and
Windows 95
Operating systems
that run on Motorola/IBM PowerPC: Rhapsody, AIX, Amiga, BeOS, BSDI
Internet Super Server, LINUX, Macintosh OS X, Macintosh System 6,
7, and 8, and NetBSD
Operating systems that run on Sun
SPARC: BSDI Internet Super Server, LINUX, NeXTSTEP, OpenBSD,
OpenSTEP, NetBSD, and Solaris
Operating systems that run on
Sun SPARC64 (UltraSPARC): BSDI Internet Super Server,
LINUX, and Solaris
Operating systems
that run on DEC Alpha: Digital UNIX, FreeBSD, LINUX,
NetBSD, OpenBSD, OpenVMS, and Windows NT Server Enterprise
Edition
Operating systems that run on HP
PA-RISC: HP-UX, LINUX, NetBSD, NeXTSTEP, and OpenBSD
Operating systems
that run on SGI or DEC pmax MIPS: IRIX, LINUX, NetBSD,
OpenBSD, Pyramid, and ULTRIX
