CEDU 581 - Week 2

A reflection of all the OS activities completed thus far:

Class Activities -
I viewed both the "Hardware and Software" and "CMOS, BIOS and other Mysteries that fly by on the boot up..." presentations and learned quite a bit. The first presentation was very helpful in that it listed a number of ways to rate a CPU. This was an especially useful summary because I have chosen the CPU for my Computer Component Research Project. The suggestions included the following: processor speed, maximum number of memory addresses, multiprocessing ability, special functionality, efficiency of programming code, bus speed, and memory cache.

The Most Basic Information on Operating Systems - The most popular are:
Windows (typically on PC only)
Mac OS (made for Macs)
UNIX (open source software for PCs)

Individual Assignments for Points -

2points. Investigate an alternative OS
An operating system is used by every desktop computer. The most popular operating systems are Windows, Mac OS, and Unix. Linux is a free Unix, it is an open source operating system available to everyone. I have never used Linux and have chosen to investigate it for this assignment.

* Conceived in 1969 and released in 1971, Unix was originally written in assembly language and then re-written in 1973 in programming language. The operating system was growing and being used in education and computer science but applications were still hard to use with each other for personal computing so Linus Torvald created the Linux kernel to handle process control, networking, and file system access.

* Linux is unique because the Linux kernel and other components are free and open source software that runs on the PC platform.

* According to howstuffworks.com, Linux appeals to a variety of people: People who already know UNIX and want to run it on PC-type hardware, People who want to experiment with operating system principles, People who need or whant a great deal of control over their operating system, and People who have personal problems with Microsoft.

* "In general, Linux is harder to manage than something like Windows, but offers more flexibility and configuration options." howstuffworks.com/question246

* Here is a great site for the hardware requirements needed by Linux:
http://www.roseindia.net/linux/linux-basics/HardwareRequirement.shtml

* Check out this explanation regarding the "latest version of Linux" from wikianswers.com:
There is no one "current Linux operating system" due to the fact that Linux is developed and distributed in various forms by many different individuals and corporations. The current version of Linux depends on which of these "distributions" you are interested in installing.

For example, a popular distribution of Linux tailored for use as a Desktop system is Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com), which is distributed by the company Canonical. The current release of Ubuntu is 8.04, which was released in April this year.

There are literally hundreds of distributions freely available online, but other distributions which are of note in the desktop arena include Fedora (www.fedoraproject.org), openSUSE (www.opensuse.org) and Debian (www.debian.org), each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. Each distribution has its own release schedule, but you can find out what the current version is (and download it) from the official websites.

1 point. Learn 5 new features of your operating system.

The operating system I currently use is Windows, specifically Windows "eXPerience" - aka Windows XP. The 5 new features I explored, as well as the sites I checked out are listed below.

* Parental Controls - www.windows-help-central.com/parental-controls-in-windows-xp.html
* Change Desktop Color in Windows XP - www.helpwithpcs.com/tipsandtricks/change-desktop-color-win-xp.html
* Windows Hotkeys (keyboard Shortcuts) - www.helpwithpcs.com/tipsandtricks/keyboard_shortcuts_windows_xp.html
* Accessibility Wizard See description below from http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1477&page=11 VERY COOL for me to know as a special education teacher!

Windows XP comes equipped with a large variety of what Microsoft calls 'accessibility options,' tools to make Windows easier to use for people with visual difficulties or other problems and disabilities.

These can be accessed most easily from the accessibility wizard, found at 'start/programs/accessories/accessibility/accessibility wizard.'

Through this program you can manually change the default Windows text size, scroll bar size, icon size, choose a high contrast colour scheme and mouse cursor, activate captions for supporting programs and visual indicators to replace sound effects for the hard of hearing as well as activate a range of other options by indicating to the wizard where your difficulties using the system lie. Besides above options, the various accessibility features you can enable are:

StickyKeys: Allows any key combination that includes CTRL, ALT or SHIFT to be entered one key at a time instead of simultaneously.

BounceKeys: Windows will ignore held down or rapidly repeated keystrokes on the same key.

ToggleKeys: Windows will play a sound when any of the 'lock' keys are pressed, such as Caps Lock or Num Lock. Very useful this.

MouseKeys: The numeric keypad can be used to control the mouse pointer.

Magnifier: Opens a window at the top of the screen that displays a magnified view of the area around the cursor.

Narrator: Narrates the contents of system Windows, including the status of things like checkboxes and options, for the visually impaired. Rather difficult to use, and reminiscent of Hal 9000 in voice.

On-Screen keyboard: Provides a keyboard option for users who cannot operate a physical keyboard.

* More Accessibility Resources http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windowsxp/default.aspx