What is Operating System
In this article I’m going to make sense of normally confusing computer terms: “operating system”, or “OS”.
Maybe you’ve found yourself with questions and wonder what OS means,, if so, you’re not the only one.
This actually can be a pretty simple concept to get when you have it explained the right way, as you’re going to discover by the time you’re done reading this computer dictionary article.
First, an OS or operating system, is a type of software.
To repeat my explanation from a previous article, here’s how you can think of software:
“Software” refers to all of the pieces of the computer that you can’t really observe or handle directly. Software would include things like Microsoft Excel, an email program like Outlook, Windows or the Mac OS, plus all of your own files like specific emails, photos, MP3s, etc.
Here’s how you can think about it: hardware is like your brain, a physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts — the non-physical part of yourself.
Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts “run on” your brain.
Are you getting the idea now? So let’s talk about the operating system specifically.
First off, let me give a couple of examples: the two best known operating systems right now are Windows, and Mac OS X (pronounced “Oh Ess Ten” — as in the Roman numeral ten).
Windows XP and Windows Vista are a couple different versions of the Windows operating system. While Mac OS 10.4 (often called “Tiger”) and the newer Mac OS 10.5 (a.k.a “Leopard”) are two examples of versions of Mac OS X.
OK now, so what is an OS?
Think of it this way: when a person is born, they have the instinct to eat, to breathe, and so on, and they also have the instinct to watch, listen, and absorb what’s going on around them.
Gradually over time, a young person learns to talk and walk by observing others, and as they mature, they also learn more fundamental skills like reading and writing, hand-eye coordination, etc.
Another way to say this is, they gradually transition from being able to do not a lot except eat, sleep, and fill diapers, to physical and mental maturity where they have all the common skills they need to learn more specific skills such as driving, playing a sport like hockey, writing an essay for a class, working a job,etc.
In some ways, when you power up your computer, it’s just like a newborn baby, only having a few built-in “instincts.”
The computer is able to power on, and show a picture on the screen, but that’s pretty much it.
The only other thing it’s able to do is check the hard drive, and if it finds an operating system there, it is able to start running the OS.
That process is called “booting”, which is what happens between when you turn the computer on, and when you can actually start using it.
So, it’s just like when a child is born and grows up: the OS contains the “life experiences” and lessons that give a “child” all the basic skills like walking, talking, reading, writing, etc., that lets everything else take place.
So in a sense, it’slike your PC is “born” and “grows up” in the space of 30 to 60 seconds or so (or longer for some computers) that it takes to “boot” the OS.
In other words, the operating system is sort of like those fundamental skills we all have and learned as we grew up. More specifically, it’s the software on the computer that creates its desktop, your icons on it, moves the little mouse pointer around on the screen when you move your mouse around,lets you work with files, lets you type, etc..
Without the OS, you couldn’t do anything with a computer but push the power button and see an unhelpful message such as “non system disk or disk error” on a Windows-type computer, or a flashing question mark on one of Apple’s Macs.
So even though many people don’t really understand what an OS is, or what it’s for, no-one could use a computer without one.
Finally get it?