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Software vs Os - What's the difference?

software | os |

As a noun software

is software.

As a verb os is

.

software

English

Noun

(-)
  • (computing) Encoded computer instructions, usually modifiable (unless stored in some form of unalterable memory such as ROM). Compare hardware.
  • * 1958 , John W. Tukey, "The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics" in The American Mathematical Monthly , vol. 65, no. 1 (Jan. 1958), pp 1-9:
  • The "software " comprising the carefully planned interpretive routines, compilers, and other aspects of automative programming are at least as important to the modern electronic calculator as its "hardware" of tubes, transistors, wires, tapes and the like.
  • * 1995 , Paul Niquette, Softword: Provenance for the Word ‘Software’ :
  • As originally conceived, the word "software " was merely an obvious way to distinguish a program from the computer itself. A program comprised sequences of changeable instructions each having the power to command the behavior of the permanently crafted machinery, the "hardware."

    Usage notes

    Software'' is a mass noun (''some software'', ''a piece of software''). By non-native speakers it is sometimes erroneously treated as a countable noun (''a software'', ''some softwares ).

    Hyponyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * * * * * * * *

    See also

    * application * assembly * assembler * bug * code * coding * compilation * compiler * debugging * interpreter * linking * linker * open source * patch * programming * script * utilities * warez

    References

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    os

    English

    Initialism

    (Initialism) (head)
  • Ordnance Survey
  • oculus sinister — left eye
  • outsize
  • Derived terms

    * (operating system) RTOS , JeOS

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (UK) an Ordnance Survey map.
  • We've got an OS of the Cuckmere area.
  • (software) operating system
  • I've decided to install two different OSes on my new laptop.
  • * 2008 , Karim Yaghmour, Jon Masters, Gilad Ben-Yossef, Building Embedded Linux Systems
  • Some vendors do now have a variant of the per-unit royalty (usually termed a “shared risk,” or similar approach), but it is not strictly the same as for those proprietary embedded OSes mentioned before
  • * 2010 , Jorge Orchilles, Microsoft Windows 7 Administrator's Reference
  • A policy-created scheduled task will be accepted by computers running client OSes as old as Windows 2000
  • * 2009 , Emmett Dulaney', CompTIA A+ Complete Review Guide
  • In a dual-boot configuration, you install two OSs on the computer (Windows XP and Windows 2000, for example).

    Anagrams

    * ----