Features of contemporary operating systems and their structures

 

A computer system consists of hardware, operating system, applications, and users. An operating system is software that manages computer hardware, acting as an interface between a user and the hardware. An operating system is responsible for allocating resources and services, such as memory, devices, processors, and information (Geeksforgeeks, 2021). The functions of an operating system include security, control over system performance, job accounting, error detecting, coordination between software and users, memory management, processor management, device management, and file management.


Security management is responsible for controlling the access of programs, processes, or users to the resources defined by computer controls to be imposed, together with some means of enforcement. Process management creates, deletes, suspends, resumes, synchronizes and establishes communication between processes. File management creates, deletes and manipulates files and directories. File management also maps files onto secondary storage and creates backup files on stable storage media. Secondary storage management is responsible for disk scheduling, free space management and storage allocation. The I/O device manager offers a buffer caching system, provides a general device drive code, and provides drivers for particular hardware devices. Main memory management helps keep track of primary memory, determines which part of memory is in use by whom, and allocates and de-allocates memory when a process requests or is terminated. Network management allows access to various computing resources, network resources, and helps to access shared resources.

References

Geeksforgeeks (2021, 31 May 2021). Introduction of Operating System - Set 1. Retrieved from https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/introduction-of-operating-system-set-1/?ref=lbp


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