Important Computer Awareness Materials (Day-15) – Operating System Part-2:
Dear Readers, IBPS Exams are approaching shortly, we all knew that Computer Awareness is one of the important section, which will help you to increase your score easily.
Many of our followers were asking us to provide Important Computer Awareness Notes along with the model questions, here we have planned to provide the Topic wise Important Computer Awareness Materials on Daily basis, and also we will provide MCQs based on these topics daily. Kindly follow us regularly and make use of it.
Operating Systems Part-2:
Functions of Operating System:
- Boot up the computer:
The process of starting or restarting a computer is known as booting. A cold boot is when you turn on a computer that has been turned off completely. A warm boot is the process when you restart the computer using OS i.e restart by Ctrl+Alt+Del or boot from sleep mode.
- Basic computer tasks:
It performs basic tasks such as managing the peripheral devices. These days most OSs use support plug and play feature i.e a printer for example will be detected and configured automatically without any manual intervention.
- Provides a user interface:
Two main types of UIs are: command line and GUI. With command line, user types commands on terminal to performs various tasks. With GUI, user interacts using a mouse, icons and menus.
- Handling of System Resources:
OS handles system resources such as computer’s memory and sharing of CPU time by various applications or peripheral devices. It ensures each application gets necessary resources it needs to perform effectively.
- File management:
OS handles the organization and tracking of files and directories. It keeps track of user’s activity as far as file creation, updating, deletion or movement is concerned.
Two main types of file systems are:
File Allocation Table (FAT/FAT32) – It uses a file allocation table maintained by OS on a hard disk that provides a map of clusters (logical units of storage) that a file has been stored in.
New Technology file system (NTFS) – File system introduced by Microsoft. It also allows permissions (read, write, execute) to be set for individual files and directories.
Types of Operating systems:
- Single user, single task OS:
It is designed in a way that one user can effectively do one thing at a time.
E.g. – Palm OS for palm handheld devices.
- Single user, multi tasking OS:
It allows a single user run several programs at the same time. Personal computers/ Laptops are mostly used with this kind of OS.
E.g – MS windows or Apple’s MacOs platforms. (You see you can write a blog and listen to music side by side when the downloading is on at back end- multi tasking!!!)
- Multi user OS:
It allows many different users to take advantage of computer’s resources simultaneously. OS must allocate resources in a way that a problem with one user doesn’t affect the entire community of users. Main purpose is to maximize the resources.
E.g. Mainframe systems.
- Real time OS:
It controls the environment as it has a data processing system. Time taken by system to respond to an input and display the result is called a response time. It uses an advanced algorithm for scheduling.
- Time sharing OS:
It enables many people located at various terminals, to use the system, at a particular time. In other words, its a logical extension of multiprogramming. The main purpose is to minimize response time.
- Distributed OS:
Distributed systems use a number of central processors to serve multiple real time applications and different users. Data processing jobs are distributed among processors.
- Network OS:
This OS runs on a server. It is responsible for manaing data, users, groups, security, applications and other networking functions. It allows shared file and printer access among multiple computers in a network.
E.g. Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2008, oivell NetWare.
- Embedded OS:
Its a specialized OS for use in computers which are built into larger systems. It is part of different kind of machine.
E.g. – Computers in cars, traffic lights, GPS navigation system, elevators, ATMs etc.
As compared to a general purpose OS, embedded OS has limited functions but that single function/application is crucial to its operation.
- Mobile OS:
Its an OS specially designed to run on mobile devices such as smartphones, PDAs.
E.g.- Android, iOS etc.
ONE LINER:
According to the functionality of Operating System, there are different types available that are divided into following types –
- Multi-user Operating System
- Multi threading Operating System
- Multi-Tasking Operating System
- Multiprocessing Operating System
- Real time Operating System
- Multi-user permits more than one user to execute multiple programs at a single time.
- Multiprocessing allows one program to run on different CPUs.
- Multi threading permits many small parts of a single program to execute simultaneously.
- Multitasking gives support to many tasks so that they can run concurrently.
- Real-time Operating System gives a response to input given by the user in real time or instantly.
- Boot: When computer starts, the operating system is first loaded (as it is essential for running all other programs), this process is known as booting.
- Cold Boot: When you turn the computer ON from an OFF position.
- Warm Boot: When you reset the computer that is already ON.
