Operating Systems

An operating system (O/S) is an interface between the hardware and the user for the management and sharing of the resources of the system. Every general-purpose computer must have an operating system to run other programs. Operating systems perform basic tasks, such as recognizing input from the keyboard, sending output to the display screen, keeping track of files and directories on the system disk and managing communication with other peripheral devices such as external disk drives & other USB storage devices, printers & scanners and network communication.

In addition to being a the management and filing system for a computer system it also provides a platform for other software packages to run, these can be also know as “application programs”. As the operating system manages the hardware and running of the computer system this allows the application software the freedom to work specifically on the applications it was written for.

Operating System Diagram

The operating system not only acts as an interface for hardware and applications but it also offers a number of services to application programs and users. Applications access these services through application programming interfaces (APIs) or system calls. By invoking these interfaces, the application can request a service from the operating system, pass parameters, and receive the results of the operation. Users may also interact with the operating system with a software user interface (UI) by typing commands in to the command line interface (CLI) or using a graphical user interface (GUI). For hand-held and desktop computers, the user interface is generally considered part of the operating system. On large multi-user systems like UNIX, the user interface is generally implemented as an application program that runs outside the operating system.

Common contemporary operating system families include Mac OS, Linux and Microsoft Windows.

Operating Systems

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