The document provides an overview of operating systems, including:
- An operating system acts as an interface between hardware and users, managing resources and presenting a virtual machine.
- Early operating systems included batch systems where jobs were submitted on cards to be processed sequentially. Modern systems support multiprocessing and personal computers.
- Operating systems are classified by application such as mainframes, servers, real-time, and embedded systems. Hardware components include CPUs, memory, disks, and I/O devices.
- Key concepts are processes, concurrency, deadlocks, and file systems. System calls provide the interface for processes to request services from the operating system. Common structures include monolithic, layered, and client-server models.