OS (Operating system) is system software that manages your computer’s hardware and software. It acts as an interface or medium between you and the computer hardware. OS provides such an environment that a user can easily execute programs.
OS also acts as a resource allocator. Now what do I mean by that?
Now as you are using your computer or laptop or even mobile, you are using some resources provided by your CPU to run your applications. You might be listening to a song while working on your PPT or might be downloading some files while watching a movie. But all these programs are working simultaneously for you and that’s because of the CPU.
In other words, resources like memory, CPU power is limited but still, OS manages to run many programs simultaneously and that’s because of its resource allocation feature. It puts the programs in queues. What I mean is if program A is using resource 1 and program B also need that resource, OS will put program B to the queue and will allocate other resources to be used by program B, and as soon as program A finishes using resource 1, it will then be allocated to program B and this goes on.
OS divides and allocates the memory and other resources to different programs so that the user can execute multiple programs at once and hence gives a better computing experience to the end-user.
Some of the examples are Windows by Microsoft, macOS by Apple, Linux, etc.
