An operating system (OS) is software, consisting of programs and data, that runs on computers, manages computer hardware resources, and provides common services for execution of various application software.
)The most important program that runs on a computer.
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 disk, and controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers.
For large systems, the operating system has even greater
responsibilities and powers. It is like a traffic cop -- it makes sure
that different programs and users running at the same time do not interfere with each other. The operating system is also responsible for security, ensuring that unauthorized users do not access the system.
Operating systems can be classified as follows:
Operating systems provide a software platform on top of which other programs, called application programs,
can run. The application programs must be written to run on top of a
particular operating system. Your choice of operating system, therefore,
determines to a great extent the applications you can run. For PCs, the most popular operating systems are DOS, OS/2, and Windows, but others are available, such as Linux.
As a user, you normally interact with the operating system through a set of commands. For example, the DOS operating system contains commands such as COPY and RENAME for copying files and changing the names of files, respectively. The commands are accepted and executed by a part of the operating system called the command processor or command line interpreter. Graphical user interfaces allow you to enter commands by pointing and clicking at objects that appear on the screen.
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