Modern OS?

[yssing]

Now I have seen the notion "modern OS" several times.
I am getting a little confused (not really), but what is a modern OS? what does it require to be modern?

Surely it can't be surfing the net, that is not something the OS does. Is it all kind of eye candy? multi user OS? please do tell.

[yssing]

In short, OSes which people are coming to, not those which people are running away from.

So what defines it, is what the user want?

Dammy >> IMHO apps has nothing to do with an OS being modern, apps has something to do with apps.

[yssing]

Digiman >> All those mentioned have nothing to do with the OS but are depending on applications.

[yssing]

So a modern system OS must have:
-Memory protection.
-SMP support.
That much we all agree on. Hence no flavor of AOS can be considered modern(?)

It must run on new and any available hardware, but that would exclude pretty much any OS.

It must be able to run Skype, Office suite and the newest games, personally I don't consider those to be a part of an OS.

It must used 1000 times the resources of an old OS to do the same basic things.

So no real consensus can be reached, other than MP and SMP.