What is operation system responsible for?

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Request for Question Clarification by websearcher-ga on 11 Mar 2005 08:42 PST

Hi persiandevil:

Before we answer your question, we are going to need some more details....

* By "operation system", do you mean *operating system* - the set of
instructions that run a computer? Examples of operating systems are
Windows XP, Linux, MacOS, etc.

* By "responsible for", do you mean what functions does an operating
system perform in a computer?

Are there any other details you can provide us about what you are looking for? 

Thanks. 

websearcher

I found this on wikipedia.org

In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software
responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and
basic system operations. Additionally, it provides a foundation upon
which to run application software such as word processing programs and
web browsers.

In general, the operating system is the first layer of software loaded
into computer memory when it starts up. As the first software layer,
all other software that gets loaded after it depends on this software
to provide them with various common core services. These common core
services include, but are not limited to: disk access, memory
management, task scheduling, and user interfacing. Since these basic
common services are assumed to be provided by the OS, there is no need
to re-implement those same functions over and over again in every
other piece of software that you may use. The portion of code that
performs these core services is called the "kernel" of the operating
system. Operating system kernels had been evolved from libraries that
provided the core services into unending programs that control system
resources because of the early needs of accounting for computer usage
and then protecting those records.