text-oriented or graphic-oriented?

[Blue Beret]

In informatics classes, we were taught that operating systems are divided in two groups: text-oriented and graphic-oriented. Obviously, the teacher was talking about the difference between DOS and Windows. I still don't know if Linux could fit into either of these groups. Anyway, is it the best idea to classify OS's by the way they interact with the user, rather that by what they can do?
I must agree that the teacher's information was significantly outdated. I'm just wondering what will the Linux community say about this.

[d38dm8nw81k1ng]

ok, the linux shell is text-based (command-line interface if you like). X is the Graphical User Interface (graphics-based). the final one is Menu-Driven. imo the best example is probably a curses interface (ncurses for example).

if you are talking about the standard interface of the OS, then linux is a text-based OS and windows NT/2000/XP is a graphical OS. hope that helps clarify things

[fingal]

I suppose it depends on your point of view.

I use what I call the 'chopstick approach' to Linux. If I want to get something done I will typically use a gui for one half of it (renaming files for example, or just for navigating) and for lower level tasks where I want more precision I'll use a CLI. The gui part is like an overview, the CLI is the 'hands on' part. Even this is a generalisation though.

So I think of Linux as text driven and graphics driven. Just my 2 pence worth.

Actually what attracted me to your post was the idea of classifying OSes. Have you found a formal way to do this?

[Blue Beret]

I just wondered about the way my teacher did. Perhaps it was just a mean to explain the GUI evolution.
Maybe I'd classify OS's by their licence

[fingal]

I just wondered about the way my teacher did. Perhaps it was just a mean to explain the GUI evolution.
Maybe I'd classify OS's by their licence

Cool. I found a rough classification here.

[DThor]

Not sure I agree with the teacher about that GUI/non-GUI classification, or the point of it. The OS is the OS - it runs at the centre and actually does the work(really, I'm talking the kernel here). Everything else is just layers on top of that, whether you're talking a command line or a bouncing icon. I see them both as access to the kernel, not as two different OS designs. They are two different approaches to kernel interface, that's all.

DT

[d38dm8nw81k1ng]

no, the kernel manages the hardware. the OS does a few more things and provides an environment to work in (this includes the interface). so technically, windows is a GUI OS and linux is a CLI OS, but to describe them like this is not a good idea since you can interface with them using either method.

[DThor]

Erm, Windows has a kernel too. The kernel is the operating system - it handles the hardware as you say, but it also accepts requests for things to do, schedules them, sends them off to the hardware to do and shuttles the information back and forth between the processes. That's the operating system, a kernel. The Windows GUI is an interface to the whole thing, just like OSX has BSD underneath and it has it's layer on top, and Linux has the Linux kernel and what you use to interface to it(be that the command line, or additionally, an XWindows session with a wm running).

Windows might wire in the GUI a little tighter, but that's still the way it works. Admittedly there are some fundamental things that are different between the OS's, like init states, but a monolithic kernel exists in both. I think the classification system mentioned at the head of this thread is an oversimplified(and incorrect) classification based on limited experience with computers. Even BlueBeret mentions the teacher probably equates "command line" with DOS.

DT

[d38dm8nw81k1ng]

what i'm saying is that the interface is part of the operating system to provide the environment to work in. note, linux is only a kernel, not an OS. GN/Linux is the OS (if we're to follow RMS's ego). that's because a kernel CANNOT provide an environment to work by itself. it's the other tools (the GNU in this case) that provide this environment. the windows GUI is part of the OS because that is how it provides its environment, via a GUI. GNU/Linux's environment is provided by a CLI.

NOTE: i'm referring to GNU/Linux only as a means to separate the OS (GNU/Linux) from the kernel (Linux).

[Blue Beret]

I think we all agree about the fact that the text/graphic OS groups are incorrect. However, that's what we had to learn last year. Simplified enough, the teacher was talking about two systems in total: MS DOS and Windows. No mention of any other, yet possibly used, OS, not even UNIX.
I'm lucky not to get influenced by what they teach us...