Nowadays, almost all of us use smartphones, Smart TVs, Smart Watches, Tablets, Desktops, or Laptops. Most of us know that, all these devices have an Operating System. Like, we often talk about Android device, iOS, Mac OS, Windows, Linux and much more.
But, do you know what an OS is or what an OS does? I really didn’t know when I started using a computer. I thought a Word processor was probably part of the OS. Later, I learned it’s not, it’s just a separate application.
Before we jump into learning more about OS, we need to understand, whenever we do something on a device, we are mostly trying to use an application.
So, What is an OS?
All of these devices consist of 2 things
- Hardware – The Physical part, all device components that we can touch, and the parts inside it.
- Software – The Logical part, applications that do something based on our action(touch, click, etc.).
And, OS is the most important and critical software installed/resides in a device. What I mean is, without an OS, a device is useless hardware. Really! why is OS so important? What does an OS do?
An OS is a software, having a few important functions
- Memory Management – When you buy a device, you mostly prefer to buy one with higher memory(RAM, ROM, etc.), for the device to perform faster or store more information. When we use an application, it needs some amount of memory, and the OS is responsible for allocating/deallocating memory for the application.
- Process Management – When an application is running, it’s called a process. An application can have one or more processes. At a time, multiple applications run on a device, so all those processes related to different applications are managed by the OS. Like, starting a process, stopping a process, communication between processes, etc.
- Device Management – In a smartphone or other smart devices, or even for a laptop, they enclose most of the hardware within a single case. But, if we see a Desktop computer, it has a monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, and a lot more, which are external. OS helps to connect and ensure smooth interaction between those devices.
- Security and access control – You wouldn’t allow others to access your personal belongings, right? That’s what OS makes sure of. It ensures other users/processes cannot access your documents/files and vice versa.
- File System Management – To properly manage all files in a device, it has a structure to follow. OS manages those structures, permissions (who can access what), etc.
- And OS is responsible for much more like Networking, User Interface management, Performance monitoring, Virtualization, etc., depending on what an OS offers.
An Operating System is not that simple, so I cannot explain it in a single page. But I am trying to give you a brief idea in simple terms. Hope this helps.