What is an Operating System (OS)? - Beautifully Explained

What is an Operating System?

What is an operating system?

Basically, An Operating system is made up of a combination of small programs and software, Operating system act as an intermediary between user and hardware. OS controls the background programs running in your device (a device like a laptop, smartphone, computer etc), the network controlling, boot up (staring device), shut down (turning off the device) and all basic task normally a device requires.

Let's more find about "What is an operating system?"

Operating System

• OS is a program which controls the execution of all other programs (applications). 
• Manage hard drive storage and ram control.
• Acts as an intermediary between the computer and the user.
• OS comes with some applications (Apps) already installed.
• Operating System Provides:- 

1. convenience 
2. extensibility 
3. efficiency

• Various management of memory
• Device management (Input/Output Device)
• All process management
• System files management
• Hard Disk management
• CD/DVD Drive management
• Device's Ports managemenrt

Wait! first, see the image given below, you will better understand the working of  Operating system.

Operating system working 

Operating system working in layers

The above figure shows that user interact with application, while application interact with operating system and operating system interact with hardware and vice-versa (reverse process). That's how Operating system works.

Operating System Working Example

Now imagine, you want to take a selfie with your phone. Definitely, you will tap on the camera icon that is available on your screen and phone's camera will be open. Here, the Operating system comes into play, OS connects camera app to the hardware of camera. OS does these types of task which the user can't see easily. All the background program process handle by Operating system. 

Some Famous Operating Systems

• Android (Google's OS)- use in modern smartphones, tablets, ipads.
• Windows (Microsoft's OS) - use in computers, laptops, some phones.
• Linux - use in laptops, super computers, etc.
• Mac (Apple's OS) - use is laptops.

Most famous operating systems

There are a lot of operating systems available in the market but the above-mentioned OS are very famous and used by most of the users in the whole world. 

One thing is clear that Android is famous OS among Smartphones, while Windows is most famous among computers and laptops both android and windows are user-friendly that's why they are mostly used by the user in the whole world. But Linux is one of the powerful operating systems and used by professional users like programmers, developers, IT experts. 

Each type of OS has some of its unique features and designed for some different purpose. 

Conclusions

• An operating system helps in connecting software to hardware.
• An operating system (OS) is a software program that manages the hardware and software
• resources of a computer.
• There are many OS available in the market like Android, Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS etc.
• Every OS has its unique features and functions.
• We can also say that an Operating system is the heart of a computer.

Which operating system do you love most?