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Operating System Functions (Part 1)Operating System Functions (Part 1)When computer is turned on the operating system is loaded into the main memory from the disk. Most of the operating systems perform the similar functions. The main functions performed by the operating system are: 1. Booting a Computer The operating system consists of a supervisor portion and a set of system programs. When the computer is switched on, the supervisor portion of the operating system (known as kernel) is loaded in the RAM from the disk. This process to start or restart a computer is called booting process. There are two types of booting. Cold Boot - When computer is switched on, the booting. This process of booting is called Cold Boot. Warm Boot - The process to restart the computer that is already powered on is called Warm Boot. Each time the computer is booted, the important components of operating system are loaded from disk into the RAM. The most important component of operating system is called the Kernel. The Kernel is the core of an operating system; It performs various functions remaining inside the RAM, such as management Of memory, input/output devices, application programs etc. The Kernel is memory resident program of operating system. It means that Kernel remains in memory while the computer is on. The other parts of operating system are non-resident and these are loaded into RAM as and when required. When you switch on your computer, some messages are displayed on screen. These include the information about the computer manufacturing company and information about various components of computer etc. The computer checks different devices attached with computer. The steps, of booting process are described below:
If there is any problem in loading the operating system or operating system not found on disk, then BIOS displays a message on the, screen such as "non-system disk or disk error". 2. User-interface User interface means how the user interacts with the computer to perform various tasks. User runs the application programs, opens the document, enters the data, prints the output reports etc. All these are examples of user interfacing. The operating system plays the main role for interfacing between user and computer. The hardware devices like keyboard, mouse and monitor etc. are used for interfacing. There are two main types of user interfaces. These are:
a) Command-line User Interface In command-line user interface, the operating system provides a prompt line on the computer screen. The command is typed manually from keyboard to perform a specific task. The commands are given to the computer according to the rules and syntax of the commands. This type of interfacing is difficult. The operating system DOS is an example of command-line interface. The input device keyboard is used for interfacing in DOS. b) Graphical User Interface (GUI) In Graphical User Interface, the operating system provides graphical images on the computer screen, which are known as icons or command buttons and represent objects. For example, application programs, commands, disk drives, files etc. are provided in the form of icons. The user clicks the icon to open the document or to execute the command. The GUI is very easy to interact with the computer. Microsoft Windows operating system is an example of GUI. The input device mouse is most commonly used in Windows to select and to execute the commands (or to open any computer resources). See Also or Related Articles:
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