Hacker News Reader

Microsoft hasn't really used that nomenclature since NT took over all their operating systems. Windows shell+kernel = OS. MacOS = shell+kernel = OS.

It's really the unix/linux world that stuck hard with these being separate things.

View on HN

Exactly. The windows operating system isn’t just the nt kernel. It’s also all the UI that comes out of the box, that sits on top of that kernel. What is iOS? An operating system. What kind of software is springboard? It’s part of iOS. Part of the operating system.

An operating system is a lot more than just the kernel.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com