This is an attempt at me trying to explain in "layman's terms" how an operating system works from the ground up. Therefore, there will be mass oversimplification to help lower-level readers.
Let us start by asking a few questions; what really is an operating system? What does it do and what are its primary functions? How does the computer understand what the operating system is trying to do?
What really is an operating system?
An operating system is a collective of code, it typically relies on at least two different languages to function; although this is not necessary as some use just one. It uses this pre-written code to call specific instructions to specific hardware components. What it provides as output does not have to be a GUI, but instead be a CLI. The more important theory about an operating system does not lie in the software entirely, but in how the hardware components interpret these electrical signals controlled by the CPU.
What does it do and what are its primary functions?
An operating system's entire purpose is to control the electrical signals between hardware components to provide its user with an input and output interface. Think of an operating system being the software "brains" of a computer system, the hardware would not be capable of doing much at all without some kind of operating system or code. The operating system has several operations designed by engineers that allow it to operate effectively; operations such as process stacks, memory management algorithms, programming code interpreters or compilers, and even software tools that contain algorithms or interfaces that allow the user to interact more directly with the physical hardware components.
How does the computer understand what the operating system is trying to do?
By using specific assembly language code, we can send specific electrical signals at specific intervals. The hardware simply receives these signals from the operating system, (interprets them into electrical signals by passing a current through the processor) and then follows the logic gates (etc) to send electrical current to micro transistors for brief moments of time to then use electrical components at a nanometer scale to complete arithmetic electrical calculations. So I suppose, the hardware only understands the software in an electrical logic sense by nanometer-sized conductive "tracks" etched into the processor's silicon leading to micro transistors and creating nanometer-scale logic gates.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this has helped clear up some misconceptions for you about computer systems (if you had any). I unfortunately did not feel like going into too much detail on this blog was possible so I may write a small book on this in the future, where I go into extensive detail about how operating systems work. However, if this interests you then I'd highly recommend doing some research yourself by looking at the massive archive on the internet.
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