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Operating System

What is an (OS) Operating System

An Operating System is a program which is loaded by another program called boot loader into the main memory (often DRAM Memory). This OS program manages the application programs in the computer and its resources such as memory, CPU time, Input/Output devices, network connections, etc., OS acts as an intermediate between the user and the computer hardware via the user interface such as GUI (Graphical User Interface) or CLI (command Line Interface). The following figure shows the basic hierarchy of OS.

What are the functions of OS

A general-purpose OS has lot of functionalities to provide best possible the user experience, few of them are

1. Process management
2. Memory management
3. Security
4. Files handling
5. Networking
6. Device Management
7. Device power management
8. Job scheduling

And lot more, we will see all those in detail in our future blogs.

OS Types and examples

GPOS – General Purpose OS is mostly intended to run multitude applications, and used for development, business and other purposes. e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac OS etc.,

RTOS – Real Time OS is used mostly in time critical systems. e.g., RT Linux, FreeRTOS, etc.,

EOS – Embedded OS. e.g., OS used for specific purpose devices such as ATM Machine, IoT devices,

Mobile OS – It is used in mobile computing devices such as Mobile phones and Notebook laptops. e.g., Android OS, iOS, ChromeOS etc.,

Why Do we need an OS

Some basic need for an OS is to have effective multi processing system so that multiple applications can be run at a sametime, for example you can listen to music and edit a document while the files are being copied from one location to other location, this is impossible without OS. When you are multi tasking all your computer resources such as I/O devices, storage devices and memory has to be managed properly and that is taken care by OS. When the user wants to get some job done he/she need to intract with the computer system and OS acts as the interface for it and lot more real life requirements are there for OS.