What is operating system?

  • (noun): (computer science) software that controls the execution of computer programs and may provide various services.
    Synonyms: OS

Operating System

An operating system (OS) is a collection of software that manages computer hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs. The operating system is a vital component of the system software in a computer system. Application programs usually require an operating system to function.

Read more about Operating System.

Some articles on operating system:

Personal Computer - Software - Operating System - Linux
... Linux is a family of Unix-like computer operating systems ... The system's utilities and libraries usually come from the GNU operating system, announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman ... It is used as an operating system for a wide variety of computer hardware, including desktop computers, netbooks, supercomputers, video game systems, such as the ...
History Of Personal Computers - The IBM PC - IBM PC Clones
... most were purchased with disk drives and run with an operating system three operating systems were initially announced with the PC ... was PC-DOS from IBM, and the third was the UCSD p-System (from the University of California at San Diego) ... PC-DOS was the IBM branded version of an operating system from Microsoft, previously best known for supplying BASIC language systems to computer hardware ...
Diversity of Operating Systems and Portability
... software is generally written for use on a specific operating system, and sometimes even for specific hardware ... This cost in supporting operating systems diversity can be avoided by instead writing applications against software platforms like Java or Qt ... These abstractions have already borne the cost of adaptation to specific operating systems and their system libraries ...
Microsoft Power Toys
... Microsoft PowerToys is a set of programs provided by Microsoft for the Windows operating system ... they are released after the public release of a Windows operating system ... also not under technical support because they do not undergo the same rigorous testing that the operating system components do ...
TSS-8
... TSS-8 was a little time-sharing operating system co-written by Don Witcraft and John Everett at Digital Equipment Corporation in 1967 ... The operating system ran on the 12-bit PDP-8 computer and was released in 1968 ... John Everett wrote the disk handler, file system, TTY (teletypewriter) handler and 680-I service routine for TSS-8 ...

Famous quotes containing the words system and/or operating:

    Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.
    Václav Havel (b. 1936)

    I love meetings with suits. I live for meetings with suits. I love them because I know they had a really boring week and I walk in there with my orange velvet leggings and drop popcorn in my cleavage and then fish it out and eat it. I like that. I know I’m entertaining them and I know that they know. Obviously, the best meetings are with suits that are intelligent, because then things are operating on a whole other level.
    Madonna [Madonna Louise Ciccione] (b. 1959)