Operating system

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.

Related articles

General topics

• Operating systems category
• History of operating systems
• List of operating systems
• Comparison of operating systems
• Operating systems timeline
• Important publications in operating systems

Other topics

• monolithic kernel -- microkernel -- exokernel -- virtual machine -- system call
• asymmetric and symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) -- clustering -- distributed computing
• real-time operating system -- time-sharing -- multitasking -- embedded system -- single-user -- multi-user
• orthogonally persistent -- capabilities versus access control lists
• object-oriented operating system
• Disk operating systems
• Hard disk drive partitioning
• LiveCD OS (Gnoppix and Knoppix Linux).
• Operating system advocacy
• OS-tan (Personification of operating systems)