OS Features
Learn the features and tasks of the OS.
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OS tasks
The OS manages hardware and software resources. Also, it organizes the joint work of running programs. The OS performs several non-trivial tasks to launch an application. Then, the OS tracks its work. If the application violates some agreements, like memory usage, the OS terminates it. It also launches and executes programs, which we will later consider in detail.
OS features
If the OS is multi-user, it controls access to the data. This is an important security feature. This feature lets us access the following file system objects:
- Files and directories we own
- Files and directories that somebody shares with us
A multi-user OS allows several people to use the same computer safely.
- In summary, the modern OS has the following features:
- It provides and manages access to the computer’s hardware resources.
- It provides its own software resources.
- It launches applications.
- It organizes the interaction of applications with each other. It controls access to users’ data.
It is impossible to launch several applications in parallel without the OS. When we develop an application, we have no idea how a user will launch it. The user can launch our application together with another one. In such cases, the OS responds by launching all applications. This means that the OS has enough information to allocate computer resources properly.
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