Operating System

An operating System is a set of programs that designed to manages all the resources of the computer.
In other words, a set of programs that acts as an intermediary between a user of a computer and the
computer hardware.
Memory, I/O devices, communication devices etc are the hardware resources of the computer. File
systems, virtual memory, security etc are software resources. Now a set of programs which are used
to manage all these resources is called an operating system.

Need of Operating System

 Without an operating system, a user cannot run an application program on their computer, unless
the application program is self booting.
 Execute user programs and make solving user problems easier.
 Use the computer hardware in an efficient manner.
The Kernel
The kernel is the core of the operating system and is responsible for managing the system resources
and communication among the hardware and other system services. Kernel acts as the abstraction layer
between system resources and user applications. Kernel contains set of system libraries and services.
For general purpose OS the kernel contains different services for handling the following.