My 3rd Tutorial SEB070028

Explain 20 core functions of an operating system in your own thoughts.

Operating system is a system software which is responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and the system operation.

The following are the core functions of the operating system:

It starts or activates the computer.

It administers the security of the computer to prevent it from viruses and spywares.

It administers the file system management whether it is using LINUX, UNIX, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, FAT file systems or journalized file system.

It supports user interface either graphical or not such as UNIX, Apple’s Macintosh, Microsoft’s Windows which is integrated into a kernel.

It monitors the performance of the computer.

It manages the network by establishes the Internet connection and by linking two or more computer systems together.

It allows multitasking which means running multiple independent computer programs on the same computer, giving the appearance that it is performing the tasks at the same time.

It manages the computer’s memory by making sure that each process has enough memory in which to execute so that it can run effectively. It also coordinates the flow of data in and out of RAM and determining when virtual memory is necessary.

It manages the storage by directing where data will be stored permanently on hard drives or other forms of storage.

It offer a number of services to application programs and users. Applications access these services through applications programming interfaces (APIs) or systems calls.

It also manages various devices such as the drives and displays by providing an interface between each device which is connected to the computer, the CPU and applications.

It administers multi-threading processes by breaking the tasks down into manageable chunks and prioritizing them before sending to the CPU.

Interrupts are central to operating systems as they allow the operating system to deal with the unexpected activities of running programs and the world outside the computer. When an interrupt is received, the computer's hardware automatically suspends whatever program is currently running by pushing the current state on a stacks, and its registers and program counter
are also saved.

It allows recovery and back-up routines to restart any event if system failure occur.

It provides critical event management by displaying specific issue error messages if there is occur in the running task.

It allows multiusers which means more than one user are allow to log in into a single system. The operation system will have the user account database, default home directory and also the user passwords.

The OS controls the allocation of Input and Output devices as every program on run required some hardware resources, like a word file requires resources like keyboard a mouse to interact with.

It administers the Central Processing Unit {CPU} Management. It allows allocation of resources among different applications. The OS ensures that each process gets enough share of the processor’s time share to function perfectly and properly.

It provides a set of libraries or functions which the programs may use to perform specific tasks especially relating to interfacing with computer system components.

OS allows efficient and safe shared access of processor resources through a convenient and powerful abstraction.