CODEWITHSUNDEEP
operating-system
Sai Tumili
Sai Tumili

Reputation: 1

Device drivers and the OS

If the device driver is a part of OS(operating system) then why is it specially given the status of a system software.The OS itself is a system software.

Why did they specially mention about device drivers being a system software when it is a part of system software(i.e the operating system)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 80

Answers (1)

Brendan
Brendan

Reputation: 37252

While the definitions are fuzzy (there's no strict/formal definition of "operating system" or "system software" that's agreed on by everyone); system software typically means it requires some kind of special access; and an operating system includes things that don't need any special access and aren't considered "system software" (e.g. the help system, shared libraries, etc).

Note that (based on file sizes) the majority of a modern OS isn't even software at all (it's data files for things like the configuration/settings, logs, help system, internationalization, icons and animations, fonts, sounds for various events, etc). An OS might be 75% data, 15% normal software (browser, etc), and 10% system software (kernel, drivers, etc).

Upvotes: 1

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