Operating System

An operating system is system software that manages a computer's hardware and software resources and provides common services to other computer programs, acting as an intermediary between application code and the underlying hardware for functions such as input, output and memory allocation. The rise of large-scale integration allowed personal computers, then called microcomputers, to become widespread from around 1980, and the free MINIX system, a stripped-down version of UNIX released for educational use in 1987, went on to inspire the free and open-source Linux kernel. Mobile operating systems followed a separate path, from Symbian OS's early dominance through BlackBerry OS from 2002 and Apple's iOS from 2007 to Google's Android, introduced in 2008, which had become the world's most used operating system with roughly 38 percent market share by November 2025, ahead of Microsoft Windows at about 33 percent.