Operating System:
The OS acts as an interface between the user and the computer. From the user's perspective, what matters most is the quality of the user interface provided by the OS. The user interface is also called a shell, which indicates that it "surrounds" the kernel of the OS. The kernel is the central component of the operating system. It is responsible for managing the resources of the system and for facilitating communication between the various software and hardware components of the system. The kernel is also referred to as the nucleus or the core of the operating system.
Functions of User Interfaces
All user interfaces, in general, enable the user to perform the following functions:
- Gain access or log on to the system by entering a user name and a password.
- Start the application programs.
- Manage disks and files through activities like formatting new disks, displaying a list of files in a directory, creating new directories/files, renaming directories/files, deleting empty directories/files, and copying files from one directory or disk to another.
- Shut down the operations of the computer safely by following the shutdown procedure.
Types of User Interfaces
A user interface helps the user and the hardware system to communicate with each other. There are three types of user interfaces. They are the command-line user interface, the menu-driven user interface, and the graphical user interface. These interfaces are discussed here.
Command-line user interface:
The command-line user interface is a character-based user interface. In this case, a prompt gets displayed on the screen at which the user needs to type commands using keywords that tell or instruct the OS to carry out a program or a function. The system then provides the output by displaying it on the computer monitor.
The command-line user interface contains predefined sets of rules called syntax which should be followed while interacting with the system. The syntax specifies the operation that needs to be performed to generate the desired output.
For example, the following command copy a: expertsmind.txt c: copies the file from the disk in drive A to the disk in drive C. Operating systems such as MS-DOS and SCO UNIX use command-line interface. The command-line user interface is mostly used for carrying out system administration tasks. However, this type of user interface is not very popular as it involves a lot of memorization of commands and syntaxes.
Menu-driven user interface:
With menu-driven user interfaces, the user does not need to memorize keywords and syntax. These interfaces provide the users with a list that contains a range of options from which they have to select the commands. On-screen, text-based menus show all the options available at a given point. In most systems, an option can be selected by using the arrow or the scroll keys. The Enter key should then be pressed to activate the selection. Some systems enable the user to click and activate the desired option with a mouse. Microsoft Word uses a menu-driven user interface.
Graphical user interface
GUI is a program interface that makes use of the graphical capabilities of the computer system. These capabilities help in making the program simpler and easier to use. This type of user interface consists of a desktop, a pointer, a pointing device, icons, windows, and menus.
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