The Interface of Hardware and Intelligence: The Function of Operating Systems

Year : 2026 | Volume : 13 | Issue : 01 | Page : 07 20
By

V. Basil Hans,

  1. Research Professor, Department of Management and Commerce, Srinivas University, Mangaluru, Karnataka, India

Abstract

Operating systems play a central role in bridging the gap between computer hardware and user interaction. They simplify complex machine-level operations and transform them into user-friendly and efficient digital experiences. At their core, operating systems are responsible for managing essential tasks such as process scheduling, memory allocation, file system organization, and device coordination. By handling these functions effectively, they ensure that hardware resources are used in an optimal and balanced way. In addition to resource management, operating systems contribute significantly to system security and stability. They protect data, prevent unauthorized access, and reduce the chances of system crashes, allowing users to perform both basic and advanced computing tasks with confidence. Without an operating system, interacting with hardware would be extremely difficult and time-consuming. Over time, operating systems have evolved remarkably. Early systems relied heavily on command-line interfaces, requiring technical expertise, while modern operating systems offer intuitive graphical interfaces and intelligent features. Today’s platforms are more adaptive, supporting multi-tasking, cloud integration, and mobile computing. This continuous evolution highlights how operating systems remain a crucial intersection between hardware capabilities and human needs in an ever-changing technological landscape.

Keywords: Drivers for devices, file system, hardware for computers, managing memory, managing software, operating systems (OS), scheduling processes, user interface

[This article belongs to Journal of Operating Systems Development & Trends ]

How to cite this article: V. Basil Hans. The Interface of Hardware and Intelligence: The Function of Operating Systems. Journal of Operating Systems Development & Trends. 2026; 13(01):07-20.
How to cite this URL: V. Basil Hans. The Interface of Hardware and Intelligence: The Function of Operating Systems. Journal of Operating Systems Development & Trends. 2026; 13(01):07-20. Available from: https://journals.stmjournals.com/joosdt/article=2026/view=242339

References

  1. Vichare A. Intensional view of general single processor operating systems. [Preprint]. 2013. arXiv:1308.1199. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1308.1199.
  2. Iliev AP. Formal description of components in operating systems. [Preprint]. 2014. arXiv:1402.4929. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1402.4929.
  3. Farooq U, Iqbal MA, Nazir S. A glance into the future of human computer interactions. Int J Comput Sci Eng Appl. 2011;1:22–37. doi:10.5121/ijcsea.2011.1303.
  4. Vuletic M. Unifying software and hardware of multithreaded reconfigurable applications within operating system processes [doctoral thesis]. Lausanne: École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL); 2006. 160 p. doi:10.5075/epfl-thesis-3626.
  5. Yang T. Operating system support for modern applications [dissertation]. Amherst (MA): University of Massachusetts Amherst; 2009.
  6. Seltzer MI, Endo Y, Small C, Smith KA. Issues in extensible operating systems. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University; 1997.
  7. Nikseresht MR, Somayaji A, Maheshwari A. Customer appeasement scheduling. [Preprint]. 2010. arXiv:1012.3452. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1012.3452.
  8. Weil F, Jamieson LH, Delp EJ. Dynamic intelligent scheduling and control of reconfigurable parallel architectures for computer vision/image processing. J Parallel Distrib Comput. 1991;13:273–285. doi:10.1016/0743-7315(91)90075-K.
  9. Goel N, Garg RB. A comparative study of CPU scheduling algorithms. [Preprint]. 2013. arXiv:1307.4165. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1307.4165.
  10. Cheng S, Higham L, Kawash J. Partition consistency: a case study in modeling systems with weak memory consistency and proving correctness of their implementations. Distrib Comput. 2014;27:363–389. doi:10.1007/s00446-013-0205-0.
  11. Ge Z, Lim HB, Wong WF. Memory hierarchy hardware-software co-design in embedded systems. Cambridge (MA): Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 2005. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7427.
  12. Vallat B, Tauriello G, Bienert S, Haas J, Webb BM, Žídek A, et al. ModelCIF: an extension of PDBx/mmCIF data representation for computed structure models. J Mol Biol. 2023;435:168021. doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2023.168021.
  13. Klimiankou Y. An enhanced multi-pager environment support for second generation microkernels. [Preprint]. 2014. arXiv:1404.1637. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1404.1637.
  14. Gerber S, Zellweger G, Achermann R, Hoffmann M, Kourtis K, Roscoe T, et al. Cichlid: explicit physical memory management for large machines [preprint]. 2019. arXiv:1911.08367. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1911.08367.
  15. Suh T, Blough DM, Lee HHS. Supporting cache coherence in heterogeneous multiprocessor systems. In: Proceedings of the Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition; 2004; Paris, France. Vol. 2. 2004. p. 1150–1155. doi:10.1109/DATE.2004.1269047.
  16. Sensfelder N, Brunel J, Pagetti C. Modeling cache coherence to expose interference. In: Proceedings of the 31st Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2019); 2019; Stuttgart, Germany. Dagstuhl: Schloss Dagstuhl–Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik; volume 133. 2019. pp. 18:1–18:22. doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2019.18.
  17. Wu HG. Fieldbus device drivers for accelerator control at DESY. [Preprint]. 2001. arXiv:hep-ph/0111257. doi:10.48550/arXiv.hep-ph/0111257.
  18. Smith JM, Traw CBS. Operating systems support for end-to-end Gbps networking. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania; 1993.
  19. Soviani C, Edwards SA, Keromytis AD. Adding a flow-oriented paradigm to commodity operating systems. In: Proceedings of the First Annual Workshop on Interaction Between Operating System and Computer Architecture (IOSCA-1); 2005; New York, NY, USA. New York (NY): Columbia University; 2005. doi:10.7916/D80V8P56.
  20. Yao Z, Talebi SMS, Chen M, Amiri Sani A, Anderson T. Minimizing trust with exclusively-used physically-isolated hardware. [Preprint]. 2022. arXiv:2203.08284. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2203.08284.
  21. Payne BD. Improving host-based computer security using secure active monitoring and memory analysis [dissertation]. Atlanta (GA): Georgia Institute of Technology; 2010.
  22. Yitbarek SF. Hardware mechanisms for efficient memory system security [dissertation]. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan; 2018. Available from: https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/147604.
  23. Achermann R, Hossle N, Humbel L, Schwyn D, Cock D, Roscoe T. Secure memory management on modern hardware. [Preprint]. 2020. arXiv:2009.02737. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2009.02737.
  24. Kiyanclar N. A survey of virtualization techniques focusing on secure on-demand cluster computing. [Preprint]. 2005. arXiv:cs/0511010. doi:10.48550/arXiv.cs/0511010.
  25. Laadan O, Nieh J. Operating system virtualization: practice and experience. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Haifa Experimental Systems Conference; 2010; Haifa, Israel. New York (NY): Association for Computing Machinery; 2010. p. 1–12. doi:10.1145/1815695.1815717.
  26. Laadan O, Nieh J. Operating system virtualization: practice and experience. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Haifa Experimental Systems Conference (SYSTOR ’10); 2010 May 24–26; Haifa, Israel. New York (NY): Association for Computing Machinery; 2010. Article 17, 12 p. doi:10.1145/1815695.1815717.
  27. Hanson HL. Coordinated power, energy, and temperature management [dissertation]. Austin (TX): The University of Texas at Austin; 2007.
  28. Beloglazov A, Buyya R, Lee YC, Zomaya A. A taxonomy and survey of energy-efficient data centers and cloud computing systems. Adv Comput. 2011;82:47–111. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-385512-1.00003-7.
  29. Becker M, Chakraborty S. Measuring software performance on Linux. [Preprint]. 2018. arXiv:1811.01412. doi:10.48550/arXiv.1811.01412.
  30. Foreman JC, Ragade RK, Graham JH. New software metrics for evaluation and comparison of advanced power management systems. IEEE Syst J. 2009;3:331–335. doi:10.1109/JSYST.2009.
  31. Andrade H, Crnkovic I. A review on software architectures for heterogeneous platforms. In: 2018 25th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC), Nara, Japan. 2018. p. 209–218. doi:10.1109/APSEC.2018.00035.

Regular Issue Subscription Review Article
Volume 13
Issue 01
Received 27/03/2026
Accepted 04/04/2026
Published 30/04/2026
Publication Time 34 Days


Login

My IP

PlumX Metrics