Managing external resources

An operating system needs to manage the functions of devices connected to a computer.

Managing peripherals

The operating system manages peripheral input and output devices such as keyboards, monitors, printers, scanners and cameras. It controls the sending and receiving of .

To achieve this, the operating system uses a program called a . Device drivers contain instructions on how to control a device. Each connected device has its own driver.

Using device drivers brings two advantages:

any device can be used with the operating system as long as a driver is available for it
drivers can be updated, usually to give better performance or to remove a

Managing printing using spooling

The operating system manages printing and spooling by organising data that is waiting to be printed into a queue. Once the printer becomes available the operating system releases the next data from the queue and prints it. This means that other user and system tasks can continue while the data is in the queue.

Operating systems - EduqasManaging external resources