 A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system that

guarantees a certain capability within a specified time constraint. For

example, an operating system might be designed to ensure that a certain
object was available for a robot on an assembly line. In what is usually
called a "hard" real-time operating system, if the calculation could not be
performed for making the object available at the designated time, the
operating system would terminate with a failure. In a "soft" real-time
operating system, the assembly line would continue to function but the
production output might be lower as objects failed to appear at their
designated time, causing the robot to be temporarily unproductive. Some
real-time operating systems are created for a special application and
others are more general purpose.

 A multi-user operating system allows multiple users to access a

computer system concurrently. Time-sharing system can be classified as
multi-user systems as they enable a multiple user access to a computer
through the sharing of time. This type of system is often used on
mainframes.

A multi-user operating system allows multiple users to access the data

and processes of a single machine from different computers or terminals.
These were previously often connected to the larger system through a
wired network, though now wireless networking for this type of system is
more common.

 In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also

known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU.
In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to
be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively
executing instructions for that task. Multitasking solves the problem
by scheduling which task may be the one running at any given time, and
when another waiting task gets a turn. The act of reassigning a CPU from
one task to another one is called a context switch. When context switches
occur frequently enough the illusion of parallelism is achieved. Even on
computers with more than one CPU (called multiprocessormachines),
multitasking allows many more tasks to be run than there are CPUs.

 Distributed A distributed operating system manages a group of

independent computers and makes them appear to be a single computer.
The development of networked computers that could be linked and
communicate with each other, gave rise to distributed computing.
Distributed computations are carried out on more than one machine.
 When computers in a group work in cooperation, they make a distributed
system.
 Embedded Embedded operating systems are designed to be used in
embedded computer systems. They are designed to operate on small
machines like PDAs with less autonomy. They are able to operate with a
limited number of resources. They are very compact and extremely
efficient by design. Windows CE and Minix 3 are some examples of
embedded operating systems.