Operating systems

Operating systems

1. managing resources

   • peripherals
     • drivers
       • software used to map commands to the individual peripherals
     • input/output devices
       • mouse
       • keyboard
   • printing
     • spooling
       • puts jobs into a queue so printer doesn't have to worry about it
   • Backing store
     • make regular backups of data
   • file compression
     • changes the way files/data are stored so that they take up less space
     • OS compresses and decompresses the data
   • RAM
     • slit into pages by operating system
   • Security
   • Multi-tasking

2. providing an interface

   • the user doesn't have to know code
   • GUI (graphical user interface
   • translator between the GUI and Machine code

3. disk fragmentation

   • re-arranges file fragments on a physical disk surface to improve load times

4. multitasking

   • where a processor appears to be doing two or more tasks simultaneously