Operating system

Operating system

1. What is a OS

   • An operating system is system than manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs

2. How it works

   • It sets up the divisions of memory that hold the operating system, user information and applications. It establishes the data structures that will hold the myriad signals, flags and semaphores that are used to communicate within and between the subsystems and applications of the computer. Then it turns control of the computer over to the operating system

3. Types of OS

   • A single-tasking system can only run one program at a time, while a multi-tasking operating system allows more than one program to be running in concurrency
   • Single-user operating systems have no facilities to distinguish users, but may allow multiple programs to run in tandem and a multi-user operating system extends the basic concept of multi-tasking with facilities that identify processes and resources
   • A distributed operating system manages a group of distinct computers and makes them appear to be a single computer
   • Templating refers to creating a single virtual machine image as a guest operating system
   • Embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems
   • A real-time operating system is an operating system that guarantees to process events or data within a certain short amount of time
   • A library operating system is one in which the services that a typical operating system provides, such as networking, are provided in the form of libraries

4. OS functions

   • Device drivers
   • memory management
   • I/0 management
   • CPU management
   • Aplications
   • Hardware

5. OS developments

   • For desktop systems, access to a LAN or the Internet has become such an expected feature that in many ways it's hard to discuss an operating system without making reference to its connections to other computers and servers. Operating system developers have made the Internet the standard method for delivering crucial operating system updates and bug fixes. Although it's possible to receive these updates via CD or DVD, it's becoming increasingly less common