Hopen OS

2. Kernel

(1)Multi-task and Multi-user Operating System

Operating systems can be separated into single-user and multi-user systems according to the number of users served by one computer simultaneously. It can also be separated into single-task and multi-task systems according to the number of tasks executed on one computer simultaneously. Here, the term Task is also called Process, which is a program execution instance and can be dispatched and managed by operating system.

Not all the multi-task operating systems are multi-user, while all the multi-user operating systems are multi-task. The characteristic of multi-user operating system is that it can interact with multiple user terminals, answer the service requests of multiple terminals at any moment, provide special usage environment and control resources such as files and device for each user. Although some operating system such as Windows 95 allows user to start multiple tasks and execute them synchronously, it can only interact with a single user at one time, so this kind of operating system is still a single-user OS. Hopen is a single-user operating system.