What is an Operating System?

Introduction

The core component of any computer system is the Operating System. The Operating System controls and manages the system hardware, software applications, and user interaction with the system.

In this article, We will be exploring the key components of an operating system.

Hardware and Software Interaction Manager

The critical component of any Operating System is the Kernal. The Kernal has complete control over the system allocating resources to software running. All programs must request resources from the Kernal.

The task manager screenshot below lists all applications and background processes running on my computer at that time. It shows the hardware resources allocated to each application or process.

Windows Task Manager list of running processes

The User Interface

The Operating System controls the Hardware and Software of any computing device. The Operating System provides the underlying user interface. In this section, we will explore some of the standard interface types.

The Command Line Interface

The Command-Line Interface is a text-based User Interface. The user types in commands via the keyboard. Only a limited number of commands are supported.

A common issue with Command-Line Interfaces is that they are difficult to learn and master. You first need to learn the supported keywords and the underlying syntax for their use. A problem I recently experienced for myself while running my media server on Linux. You can read about my experience here.

Microsoft Windows Command Prompt.  Windows Command Line Interface

The Graphical User Interface

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is sometimes referred to as WIMPS (Windows Icon Menu Pointer System). It is currently the most popular User Interface for human interaction with a computer system.

Windows 2010 Grphical User Interface

Speach User Interface

I’m including this user interface as I, like many others, have a smart speaker.

The computing device listens for a keyword spoken by the user, which activates the device listening mode. In listening mode, commands spoken by the user are executed by the device. That is assuming it can understand what you are saying.

Conclusion

If you have found this article interesting, you might also be interested in reading my article about why I haven’t yet upgraded to Windows 11.

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