What is an operating system?
An operating system on any computer is what allows you, the user, to access programs, store and access files, and use the hardware attached to your computer. An operating system gives you what is known in the tech world as a graphical user interface, or gui. When you multi-task on a computer, running several applications at once, and you are moving back and forth from let’s say Safari, Mac Mail, and iPhoto, the operating system allows you to do this easily. It used to be that you would have to insert a floppy disk and boot a computer off of that disk, then, once booted up, you could run whatever was on that disk. Now you still have a disk that you boot from called a hard drive, but this is inside your computer case now and basically boots up one large program that allows you to run other programs within that one large program. That one large program is the operating system. It’s the menu bar at the top of the screen on your Mac. It’s the dock at the bottom of the screen. It’s the entire graphical presentation that is given to you and allows you to click on icons, install and remove programs, edit files, move around the mouse on the screen, and it’s what connects your favorite song to your speakers so when you click play, you hear it. The operating system connects you to your hardware.
