It is a common question among students to ask, "What is an operating system and what kinds are there?". Understanding what it means, however, is different. When you turn on a computer, the operating system is the first program to be loaded. The user interface is something between a user and a computer, so it translates the instructions provided by the user from a high-level language to a machine language that the computer can understand. As well as managing memory, handling input, and other basic tasks, it provides many other functions as well.
What is an operating system?
In a computer, the operating system (OS) is the program that manages all other applications after it is loaded into the computer by a boot program. Operating system services are requested by application programs through a defined application program interface (API). The operating system can also be accessed directly through a user interface, including a command-line interface (CLI) and a graphical user interface (GUI).
Why use an operating system?
Computer software and software development benefit greatly from an operating system. If there were no operating system, each application would need its own user interface, as well as code for handling all low-level processes such as disk storage, network interfaces, and so on. If this were to be done, every application would be vastly bloated and software development would be impractical given the wide array of underlying hardware available.
Functions of an operating system
The three core functions of an operating system are: offering a user interface through a command-line interface or graphical user interface; launching and managing the execution of applications; and exposing system hardware resources to the applications.
Operating systems have user interfaces that enable users and administrators to interact with the operating system and its hardware, such as setting up, configuring and even troubleshooting. UIs can take the form of a CLI or GUI.
Management of devices. An operating system identifies, configures, and provides access to underlying computer hardware to applications. Upon detecting and identifying hardware, the OS will install corresponding device drivers, enabling the OS and applications running on the OS to access the devices without having to know anything specific about the hardware or devices.
Operating system types and examples
Operating systems serve a wide range of hardware and user needs, even though the fundamental concepts of an operating system are universal.
Operating system with general-purpose capabilities. Generally speaking, an operating system is a system that can run multiple applications on a broad range of hardware, allowing a user to run multiple tasks at once. A general-purpose operating system can run applications such as accounting systems, databases, web browsers, and games on a variety of desktop and laptop models. To ensure that applications can share the diverse computing hardware present, general-purpose operating systems pay close attention to process (thread) and hardware management.
In this blog, if you read thoroughly then you can easily understand the concept of an operating system and you can easily write your operating system assignments by yourself.
Conclusion
Operating systems play an important role in computer technology. A computer cannot function without an operating system. An operating system coordinates hardware use among different software programs.
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