FYI, "general purpose" means not real-time
Sorry, but I don't see no conflict there.
Please correct me, if I'm wrong.
The term 'general purpose OS' is as far as I know not specifically defined, but
a) is generally used for 'common
OS able to run on most commercial available machines', including FreeBSD,
which are
time-sharing (scheduling, multitasking)
what is not the same as a
real-time-operating-system (see
real-time)
The systems try to do all given jobs as fast as possible, depending on available resources and according to prioritys. There are several ways to define the start-time of processes. But I don't know how to get a reliable info by the system how long a process will last
before it ended, especially not was started. Or to define a time until processes have to be finished guaranteed by the OS. So the system knows or computes the time the process needs, start it automatically in time, and arranges resources, change prioritys of other processes, so the process is finished on exact time on the dot - at least I don't know how to do it with a default installation of FreeBSD.
Please enlight me.
Or
b) like
menelkir ment it: It's not restricted to target a single specific use, such as being a desktop-OS, only, but being also used for servers, embedded, or simply without a GUI.