Explain different services provided by the operating system.

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Krishnapriya Rajeev · Answer

An Operating System provides services to both its users and the programs running on it. A few of these services are:

Program Execution:

The operating system handles many kinds of programs like user programs and system programs. The major activities of the operating system under program management are:

Loading programs into memory
Executing the loaded programs
Synchronization of various programs
Communication between various programs
Mechanisms for deadlock handling

2. I/O Operation:

The I/O subsystem consists of the I/O devices and their corresponding drivers. The operating system handles communication between the user and the device drivers. It also provides access to the required I/O device whenever requested.

3. File System Manipulation:

File systems are normally arranged into directories for better navigation. These directories contain files and other directories. The major activities of the operating system concerning file system management are:

Providing permission for programs to perform operations on a file.
Providing an interface for users to create and delete files and directories.
It also provides an interface to create a backup of the file system.

4. Communication:

In the case of distributed systems, the operating system manages communication between processes. These processes can communicate using communication lines in the network. The major activities of the operating system regarding communication are:

It handles routing and connection strategies.
It also handles problems of contention and security.
Implementing communication using either shared memory, or message passing.

5. Error Handling:

The operating system performs the following functions concerning error handling:

It checks constantly for any possible errors.
It takes action to ensure accurate and consistent outputs.

6. Resource Management:

Resources like main memory, CPU, and storage have to allocate to each user in the case of multi-user environments. The major activities of the operating system under resource management are:

Scheduling the use of resources.
Implementing scheduling algorithms for better utilization of CPU.

7. Protection:

Protection refers to the mechanism using which we can control the access of programs and users to the resources of the system. The operating system performs the following functions concerning protection:

It ensures that access to all system resources is controlled.
It ensures that invalid access to external I/O devices is not allowed.
It also provides authentication methods for each user of the system through the use of passwords.

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Explain different services provided by the operating system.

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