An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the infrastructure software component of a computer system; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer.
An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the infrastructure software component of a computer system; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer. An operating system is the set of programs that controls a computer. The operating system acts as a host for applications that are run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating system is to handle the details of the operation of the hardware. This relieves application programs from having to manage these details and makes it easier to write applications. Operating Systems can be viewed from two points of views: Resource manager and Extended machines. From Resource manager point of view, Operating Systems manage the different parts of the system efficiently and from extended machines point of view, Operating Systems provide a virtual machine to users that is more convenient to use.