Responsibilities of an operating system

​There are three things that an operating system needs to do:

1. Manage hardware access.

2. Provide user interface.

3. Manage files and applications.

Managing hardware is either built-in into an operating system. For example an operating system knows how to operate long term storage disks.

If an operating system doesn’t know how to operate a device, than it is responsibility of that device manufacturer to provide drivers for that hardware, so an operating system knows how to use it.

For example video cards may be used by the operating system using a generic video cards may driver, but to use this video card at full capacity, a driver from this card manufacturer is needed.

Some devices use “plug-and-play” model. Generic drivers of how to use such hardware is available with the operating system, however to use full functionality of such hardware, the device driver from the manufacturer maybe needed.

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