Operating System

An operating system is a collection of system

programs that together controls the operation of a
computer system.
It is the most important part of any computer
system.
It acts as an intermediary between a user and the
computer hardware.
 The operating system has two objectives:

 Managing the Computer’s hardware:

The prime objective of the operating
system is to manage and control various
hardware resources of a computer
system. These hardware resources
include processor, memory, disk space,
I/O devices and so on.

 Providing an Interface: The operating

system organizes applications so that
users can easily access, use, and store
them. When an application is opened, the
operating system assists the application
to provide the major part of the user
interface. It provides a stable and
consistent way for applications to deal
with the hardware.
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 Types of Operating Systems
Batch Processing OS
 It allows only one program to run at a time.
 These kinds of Oss can still be found on some mainframe computers running batches
of jobs.
 It works on a series of programs that are held in a queue.
 It is responsible for scheduling the jobs according to priority and the resources
required.
They are good at churning through large numbers of repetitive jobs on large
computers.

EXAMPLE: This OS would be best suited for a company wishing to automate their
payrolls. A list of employees will be entered, their monthly salaries will be calculated,
and corresponding pay slips would be printed.

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MULTI USER or TIME SHARING OS
 This system is used in computer networks which allow different users to access the
same data and application programs on the same network.
 The multi-user OS builds a user database account, which defines the rights that
users can have on a particular resource of the system.
MULTI PROGRAMMING OS
 in this system, more than one process (task)can be executed concurrently.
 the processor is switched rapidly between the processor.
 hence, a user can have more than one process running at a time.

EXAMPLE: a user on his computer can have a word processor and an audio CD
player running at the same time.
This allows the user to switch between running applications and even transfer
data between them.
REAL TIME OS (RTOS)
It is designed to respond to an event within a predetermined time.
 It is a data processing system in which the time interval required to process and respond
is very small and highly critical.
 It is primarily used in process control, telecommunications and so on.
 The OS monitors various inputs which affect the execution of processes, changing the
computer’s model of the environment , thus affecting the output, within a guaranteed time
period.

1. Hard real-time system - Guarantee that critical tasks are completed

2. Soft real-time system - Less restrictive but they give priority to
critical tasks and retain the priority until
the task is completed.
MULTI PROCESSOR OS
• This system can incorporate more than one processor dedicated to running processes.
•This technique of using more than one processor is often called parallel processing.

EMBEDDED OS
• It is self contained in the device and resident in the ROM.
•They offer real time OS qualities.
Household appliances, car management systems, traffic control systems etc.,