13THE OPERATING SYSTEM
The operating system (OS) is a special system software layer that sits between the computer hardware and application programs running on the computer (see Figure 13-1). The OS software is persistent on the computer, from power-on to power-off. Its primary purpose is to manage the underlying hardware components to efficiently run program workloads and to make the computer easy to use.
Figure 13-1: The OS is special system software between the user and the hardware. It manages the computer’s hardware and implements abstractions ...
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