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Operating systems provide common services, such as an interface for accessing network and disk devices. This enables an application to be run on different hardware without needing to be rewritten. [15] Which services to include in an operating system varies greatly, and this functionality makes up the great majority of code for most operating ...
In practice, CPUs in personal computers are usually also connected, through the motherboard, to a main memory bank, hard drive or other permanent storage, and peripherals, such as a keyboard and mouse. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are present in many computers and designed to efficiently perform computer graphics operations, including ...
For example, a distributed operating system may present a hard drive on one computer as "C:" and a drive on another computer as "G:". The user does not require any knowledge of device drivers or the drive's location; both devices work the same way, from the application's perspective.
Any transfer of information to or from the CPU/memory combo, for example by reading data from a disk drive, is considered I/O. [1] The CPU and its supporting circuitry may provide memory-mapped I/O that is used in low-level computer programming, such as in the implementation of device drivers, or may provide access to I/O channels.
For example, the path C:\WINDOWS represents a directory WINDOWS on the partition represented by the letter C. Drive C: is most commonly used for the primary hard disk drive partition, on which Windows is usually installed and from which it boots. This "tradition" has become so firmly ingrained that bugs exist in many applications which make ...
To perform useful functions, processes need access to the peripherals connected to the computer, which are controlled by the kernel through device drivers. A device driver is a computer program encapsulating, monitoring and controlling a hardware device (via its Hardware/Software Interface (HSI)) on behalf of the OS. It provides the operating ...
CPU modes (also called processor modes, CPU states, CPU privilege levels and other names) are operating modes for the central processing unit of most computer architectures that place restrictions on the type and scope of operations that can be performed by instructions being executed by the CPU. For example, this design allows an operating ...
Diagnostic programs determine and report the operational status of computer hardware and software. Memory testers are one example. Network utilities analyze the computer's network connectivity, configure network settings, check data transfer or log events. Package managers are used to configure, install or keep up to date other software on a ...