Operating System Tutorial

Operating System Tutorial

An operating system ( OS) is a series of software that manages hardware resources in computers and provides popular computer programs services. The operating system inside a computer system is a critical component of the system software. This tutorial takes you through step-by-step approach when studying the concepts of operating systems.

Why to Learn Operating System?

An Operating System ( OS) is a computer user-hardware interface. An operating system is a program that performs all critical tasks such as file management, memory management, process management, input and output handling, and controlling peripheral devices such as hard disks and printers. Some popular Operating Systems include Linux Operating System, Windows Operating System, VMS, OS/400, AIX, z/OS, etc.

Following are some of important functions of an operating System.

• Memory Management
• Processor Management
• Device Management
• File Management
• Security
• Control over system performance
• Job accounting
• Error detecting aids
• Coordination between other software and users

Applications of Operating System

Below are some of the essential tasks an operating system works out −

• Security −It prevents unauthorised access to programmes and data through the password and similar other techniques.
• Control over system performance −Recording delays between a service request and system response.
• Job accounting −Keep track of the time and resources employed by different workers and users.
• Error - detecting aids −Dumps generation, traces, error messages, and other debugging and error detection aids.
• coordination between other software and users −coordination and assignment to the different users of computer systems of compilers, interpreters, assemblers and other applications.

Audience

This tutorial was designed for the graduates of Computer Science to help them understand the basic to advanced Operating System concepts.

Prerequisites

Before you start this tutorial, we assume you already know basic programming concepts like keyboard , mouse, monitor, input , output, primary memory and secondary memory etc. If you're not well aware of these principles then we'll recommend you go through our short Programming Fundamentals tutorial.