Operating system is the most important program on a computer which enables PC hardware to

communicate and operate with other installed programs that we call applications. It is software that
can start up PC and manage its functions. Operating system perform tasks such as recognizing
input from keyboard, sending output to the display screen, keeping files and directories on disk and
controlling other devices such as printers and disk drives. Without operating system a computer
would be useless.

Operating system is very complex program, so it’s very difficult to represent it, at the same time
simply and precisely. We are going to represent it the simpliest we can.

Main components of any operating system are: Microcode, Kernel and Shell.

Microcode is set of programs which enable operating system to work on different hardware
platforms. This set of programs is packed in module that we call BIOS(Basic Input Output System)
which is located in ROM memory.

Kernel is the central component of operating system. It is set of programs which main facilites are:
memory management, process management, system calls and device management.

Shell is command interface which interprets user’s input commands and activates adequate system
programs that constitute kernel.

According to this structure, under operating system is only included kernel since BIOS is completed
under manufacturer of the motherboard. Next to official shell, there are many more shells written by
other people. Main services of operating system are : process management, memory management,
disk and file systems, networking, security, graphical interface and device drivers.

Process management
Every program running on a computer is a process. Most operating systems enable concurrent
execution of many processes and programs. This is often called multitasking. Process management
is operating system’s way of dealing with running multiple processes. Multitasking is done by simply
switching processes quickly.

Memory management
Current computers arrange memory starting from the fastest registers, CPU cache, RAM and disk
storage. An operating system’s memory manager coordinates the use of these types of memory by
checking which one is available and how to move data between them. This activity increases the
amount of available memory by making hard disk storage seem like RAM memory. This is usefull if
running processes require more RAM than is available.

Disk and file systems

All operating systems include support for a variery of file systems. File systems comprise a
hierarchy of directories. This is similar in almost all operating systems but there are some
differences in implementation. Two main differences are the character used to separate directories
and case sensitivity. For example, Unix, Windows and MS DOS uses a slash (/) to separate
directories, OS X use a colon (:), RISC OS uses a period(.). Unix and Linux file names are case
sensitive while MS Windows file names are not. File systems may provide safe recovery in the case
of system crash. This is usually called journaling. Journaled file system writes information to the
journal and to it’s proper place in file system so in the case of crash, system can recover. MS
Windows includes support for FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems.
Networking
Most current operating systems are capable of using TCP/IP network protocol. That means that
computers with different operating systems can participate in network for sharing resources such as
files, printers, scanners etc.

Security
Many operating systems have some level of security. Security is based in ideas that:
The operating system provides access to resources, directly or indirectly, such as files on hard disk,
personal information about users and some services offered by programs running on the system.
The operating system can distinguish some requesters of these resources who are authorized to
access the resource, and others who are not authorized.

Graphical user interfaces

Almost all operating systems today have graphical interface. These operating systems use a
pointing device such as mouse for input in addition to the keyboard. The first operating systems
didn’t have graphical interface(for example MS DOS) and they used only keyboard for input.

Device drivers
A device driver is specific software that allows interaction between operating system and hardware
devices. These devices can be located in slots on motherboard(graphic card, sound card, modem,
TV tuner) or in computer ports(printers, scanners). A device driver provides commands to the
device and/or receives data from the device. Many hardware devices can’t work without drivers
while drivers for some devices are located in operating system.

About some operating systems

UNIX is operating system developed in 1969 by group of employees at AT&T Bell Labs including
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. Unix was designed to be portable, multi-
tasking and multi-user operating system and It had a big influence in academic circles during the
late 1970s and early 1980s. The current owner of Unix trademark is Open group.

LINUX is a unix-like operating system released in 1991 for the Intel x86 PC architecture. It is one
example of free and open source software and it has about 300 versions. Linux is well known for its
stability and use in servers and it is supported by corporations such as Hewllet Packard, IBM and
Red Hatt.

MS DOS is operating system developed by Microsoft in 1981. It was the most popular operating
system during 1980s and it didn’t have graphichal user interface. MS DOS provided platform on
which some earlier versions of MS Windows ran. It had eight released versions before Microsoft
stopped development in 2000.

MS WINDOWS is the most popular family of operating systems today. According to some
investigations Windows has approximately 90% of the client operating system market. Almost all
applications are produced for running in Windows operating system. The first version was released
by Microsoft in 1985 as an add-on to MS DOS. The most popular versions during 1990s were
Windows 95 and Windows 98. Today’s most popular version is Windows XP released in 2001. The
latest version is Windows Vista released in 2007.

2
3