In this modern world, no one can imagine working without any operating system and simply by running the standalone programs. An operating system is an interface between the user and the hardware. It enables the user to manage and co-ordinate the activities and to share the computer resources. There are even mobile phones that uses operating systems.

Operating system is a kind of host for computing applications that run on our computers. It stores all the details of the hardware operation. Operating system has been used by almost all computers which include handheld computers, supercomputers, video game consoles, and desktop computers.

Robots, domestic appliances and portable media player also use some types of operating systems. In the older versions of the computers the embedded OS was used, that may be on CD or on any other data storage device.

The main features of Operating Systems are:

1. Program Execution- The creation of a process by the operating system is called the Program Execution. Than to perform the intended functions, the program interacts with the user or the other devices.

2. Memory Management- The operating system helps to manage all system memory which is currently in use by programs. This ensures that no interference will occur by any program with the memory already used by the other program.

3. Device Drivers- It is a type of computer software that allows the interaction with hardware devices. It is also operating system specific that enables other programs and a specialized hardware-dependent program.

4. Networking- Almost all of the operating system supports networking protocols, hardware and applications for using them. It means dissimilar operating system participate in common network for sharing resources.

There are many other features also like multitasking, interrupts, protected mode and supervisor mode etc.

The common operating system includes BSD, Linux, Windows NT/XP/Vista/7, Darwin (Mac OS X) etc. Whereas UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems are generally run by servers.

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