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What is an Operating System

An operating system (OS) serves as an intermediary between users and hardware, enabling efficient resource management and application execution. It provides a user interface, facilitates multitasking and multiprogramming, and manages memory, devices, processes, and resource allocation. By standardizing communication between applications and hardware, the OS simplifies software development and enhances user control over system operations.

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2 views2 pages

What is an Operating System

An operating system (OS) serves as an intermediary between users and hardware, enabling efficient resource management and application execution. It provides a user interface, facilitates multitasking and multiprogramming, and manages memory, devices, processes, and resource allocation. By standardizing communication between applications and hardware, the OS simplifies software development and enhances user control over system operations.

Uploaded by

ifraghaffar125
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is an Operating System?

The operating system is a connecting medium between the user and the hardware. It provides an
environment in which all the hardware can be used efficiently by the user. It also makes sure that all
the computer resources will be used in an efficient and smooth way without any problems. For
example, when seniors pass their instructions to the juniors, and in the same way, the users gives the
instructions to the operating system.

What is the purpose of an operating system?

For computer software and software development, an operating system offers significant advantages.
Every application would need to have its own user interface (UI) and the extensive code required to
manage all low-level functionality of the underlying computer's system software, such as disk storage
and network interfaces, if there were no operating system, which is system software created
expressly to run the computer.

Many system-level software functions, such as delivering a network packet or displaying text on a
standard output device, such a display, are instead managed by the operating system. Between the
applications and the underlying hardware and computer operations, the system software acts as a
mediator. Applications don't need to know specifics about the hardware or other system-level
operations since the Operating System (OS) offers a standardized and repeatable method for them to
communicate with them.

In addition to guaranteeing that users can control, configure, and manage system software and
hardware through a single and easily understood OS interface, this significantly cuts down on the
time and code needed to design and debug an application.

Functions of Operating System

User Interface (UI)

The operating system offers a user interface that allows users to communicate with computers. This
might be a Command Line Interface (CLI) like Linux Terminal or a Graphical User Interface (GUI) like
Windows.

Multiprogramming and multitasking

Multiple apps can run simultaneously and move between them rapidly thanks to multitasking.

In order to maximize resource efficiency, multiprogramming allows many programs to share CPU
time and run in memory.

Memory Management

In a computer system, we have primary memory, which is also called main memory, and it is made by
the sequence of bytes. Each byte in the main memory has a unique address which helps it to check if
it is occupied or not. For executing each program in its computer system, it should be in the main
memory. Operating systems can easily check which bytes of main memory are empty and which are
not. So it allocates the main memory for the program execution, and when the program is completed
or terminated, then it deallocates the memory. Operating systems also keep a record that which byte
of memory is assigned to which program.

Device Management
The operating system manages the communication between the computer system and the
peripheral devices connected to the I/O port of the system. Peripheral devices use their respective
drivers to communicate with the system. The operating system determines which program or process
is accessed by which connection and device. It also makes sure when a program is executed or
terminated, it will stop the communication between the device and the computer system.

Process Management

The process is a program under the execution. The operating system manages all the processes so
that each process gets the CPU for a specific time to execute itself, and there will be less waiting time
for each process. This management is also called process scheduling.

Resource Allocation

The operating system manages all the resources of the computer system. It ensures the use of all the
resources by managing which resource is used by which process and for how much time.

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