How does an operating system interact with hardware?

An operating system (OS) interacts with hardware through a set of abstractions provided by device drivers. Device drivers are software components responsible for translating generic commands from the OS into specific instructions that can be understood and executed by hardware devices. The OS acts as an intermediary, allowing applications to issue commands to perform various operations on hardware resources such as processors, memory, storage, and input/output devices. It provides a layer of abstraction that hides the complexity of hardware interactions from applications, enabling them to be hardware-independent. The OS schedules and allocates resources, manages interrupts, and controls I/O operations, ensuring that multiple applications can share and utilize hardware efficiently. This interaction between the OS and hardware is crucial for the proper functioning of a computer system, as it allows for the execution of software and facilitates communication between the user or applications and the underlying hardware.

This mind map was published on 1 July 2023 and has been viewed 60 times.