text: good characteristics of operating sytem?   it has to ensure the following services:  process management (great processor management means great multitasking, great multitasking means great performance great performance means great performance - what more do you want)  memory management (the better the system manages swapping the better the system and the faster the applications - ram to hdd to ram cycles should be kept to a minimum)  disk and file systems (a good file system is key, as you don't want to spend most of your time waiting for the system to piece together fragmented files - also the faster hdd operations will affect memory swaping aka virtual memory)  networking (to be precise compatibility with current existing networks is a must)  security (the one place where linux - and all unix based sistems- rules, especially important for businesses)  graphical user interfaces (in ower days this is a must, as computers become more and more powerfull users want to feel that power at their fingertips and the best way to do this is to show them what their computer can do at all times - macos x and windows vista for example)  device drivers (at least a basic set or the option for the user to add them durring the installation process)  hope this helps  ps there's an interesting article on oss on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/operating_system