Introduction to Operating Systems

It is a common occurrence to find users who are not even aware of what operating system they are running. On occasion, you may also find an administrator who knows the name of the operating system, but nothing about the inner workings of it. In many cases, they have no time as they are often clerical workers or other personnel who were reluctantly appointed to be the system administrator.

Being able to run or work on a Linux system does not mean you must understand the intricate details of how it functions internally. However, there are some operating system concepts that will help you to interact better with the system. They will also serve as the foundation for many of the issues we're going to cover in this section.

In this chapter we are going to go through the basic composition of an operating system. First, we'll talk about what an operating system is and why it is important. We are also going to address how the different components work independently and together.

My goal is not to make you an expert on operating system concepts. Instead, I want to provide you with a starting point from which we can go on to other topics. If you want to go into more detail about operating systems, I would suggest Modern Operating Systems by Andrew Tanenbaum, published by Prentice Hall, and Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Peterson, and Galvin, published by Addison-Wesley. Another is Inside Linux by Randolph Bentson, which gives you a quick introduction to operating system concepts from the perspective of Linux.