1.1. Basic Operating System Concepts

1.1.1. What is an Operating System?

An Operating system is basically a intermediary agent between the user and the computer hardware.

• Manages the computer’s resources (hardware, abstract resources, software)
• It’s a resource allocator.
• It is also used to control programs to prevent errors and improper computer use.
• It is interrupt driven.

Users and Processes access the Computer’s resources through the Operating System

1.1.2. Operating System Benefits

• Simplifies hardware control for applications
• Enforcer of sharing, fairness and security with the goal of better overall performance
  • Trade-off between fairness and performance
  • Trade-off between optimal algorithms and lean algorithms – OS is overhead.
• Provides abstract resources
  • Sockets
  • Inter-process communication