operating system

Also known as OS, operating systems

software that manages computer hardware resources

AI overview

An operating system is software that manages your computer's hardware resources, like the processor, memory, and storage devices. It matters because it acts as a intermediary between you and the machine, handling the technical details so you can run applications and accomplish tasks without needing to understand the underlying hardware.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

In the Vinony graph

Within Vinony's link graph, operating system is referenced by 16,442 other articles, and connects out to integrated circuit, memory management and segmentation fault.

It sits within the topics Harv and Sfn no-target errors and Operating systems.

Its subject is documented across 164 Wikipedia language editions.

Wikidata facts

Instance of: software category
Subclass of: system software
Part of: computing platform
Has part: window manager
Follows: kernel

Show 13 more facts

Commons category: Operating systems
topic's main category: Category:Operating systems
Stack Exchange tag: stackoverflow.com/tags/operating-system
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
maintained by WikiProject: WikiProject Software
studied by: computer science
short name: OS
topic has template: Template:Operating systems
has list: list of operating systems
history of topic: history of operating systems
P13411: Antarctica
category for eponymous categories: Category:Wikipedia categories named after operating systems
partially coincident with: hypervisor

Sources (10)

via Wikidata · CC0

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.

Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, peripherals, and other resources.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “operating system” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.