Operating System (OS)

Operating System (OS) Definition

Operating system (OS) is a system software that manages the computer system hardware and provides basic faculties to the user. In simple English Operating system is what operates the computer hardware such as Hard Disk drive, CPU, RAM, CD drive etc. Operating system act as an interface between the user and computer hardware. The most popular operating systems for personal computers are Microsoft Windows 10, Apple MAX OS X, Google Chrome OS Linux, Unix, DOS (disk operating system) and Ubuntu. The popular mobile phones OS are Android, iOS, Blackberry, Sailfish, Tizen, Symbian, Windows Phone, Mozilla Fire and Bada.

The computer hardware understands only machine codes i.e binary codes 0 or 1 (true or false). While it would be hard for the user to remember all these machine codes, so the modern operating systems provide graphical user interface (GUI). It takes the actions or commands from the user in a human understandable form and convert them into machine code or language using a compiler.

Types of operating system

  • Time Sharing Operating system
  • Batch processing Operating system
  • Multi-programming OS
  • Network Operating system
  • Real Time operating system
  • Distributed Operating system
  • Multi-user OS
  • Multi-processing OS
  • Multi-tasking OS

Functions of Operating system

  • The OS works as an interface between the user and the hardware. Also between the hardware and software.
  • Memory Management
  • Processor Management and sharing
  • Network handling
  • Input / Output Management (Peripheral devices)
  • File management (delete, edit, rename)
  • Interpretation of instructions or commands
  • Software management
  • Error Handling
  • Data Security and Data Integrity
  • Priority Establishment
  • User management
  • Program creation and execution
  • Device drivers
  • Hardware management
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