How do operating systems for laptops differ from those for servers?
Mainly through the programs and drivers supplied as standard.
Nobody is sitting at the server, so you don't need a monitor, mouse or keyboard. USB ports or CD / DVD drives are also superfluous. The operating system can be adapted to the few tasks of a server.
For this, a server may have to be much faster in order to be able to answer many queries via its network interfaces in a short time.
For a server operating system you need a lot more security guidelines for file handling. That means who is allowed to access which folder and when, and who can do what with the folders, so schreb. And separate read rights, etc. In addition, depending on the application, it may be necessary to log who has accessed which file and when.
For this, the operating system for a terminal device may have to provide more support for graphics, etc., which the server does not necessarily have to be able to do.
What's on a server: also an operating system, for example?
Servers mostly rely on software that is no longer up-to-date but has been thoroughly tested, and the software is only rarely updated. Popular server operating systems are Debian or CentOS, for example. Then only updates come that close newly discovered security gaps, so that the probability of breaking something during an update is minimal.
Naturally. Such an operating system is needed, e.g. To allocate computing time to individual server programs, to manage the memory…
The term server is used a lot. Often those who use it don't even know what it means.
A server can be a complete device such as a PC or a very large computer system with a large number of hard drives (old devices also have magnetic tape drives). The "big ones" then no longer have any resemblance to a PC at home.
However, programs that perform a specific service are also referred to as servers. Such server programs then also run in the PC, in the laptop and also, for example, in a router. That is why the devices are not referred to as servers.
A server can also be developed without a (standard) operating system. But then you have to develop all "auxiliary programs" yourself. For example, you have to write data to a hard drive, fetch others from there, take new jobs in between, send data to the client, check whether he has already broken the connection…
A huge number of such auxiliary programs are already included in a standard operating system. Why invent everything again and, above all, test it.
