As mentioned earlier,an operating system is the main program that controls the execution of user applications and enables the user to access the hardware and software resources of the computer.
Def 2:A program that acts as an intermediary/interface between a user of a computer and the computer hardware.
The operating system controls and manages all the operations of the computer.
It also manages the utilization of the computer resources and provides a platform for loading of application software.
Description
User application programs do not directly communicate with hardware devices,instead they send messages via the operating system which has the capability to give instructions to the the hardware to perform a particular task.
Graphical view of interaction with OS as the intermediary.
An OS basically consists of two main parts namely;shell and kernel.Shell is the outer part of the OS used to interact with the OS.Kernel is the core of the OS regarded as the OS.It is the kernel that is responsible for managing such resources as the processor,main memory,storage devices,input output devices and communication devices.
