How does an operating system help manage resources like processor?

Answer 1

A computer system has many resources that may be required to solve a problem: CPU time, memory space, file-storage space, I/O devices, and so on. The operating system acts as the manager of these resources. Facing numerous and possibly conflicting requests for resources, the operating system must decide how to allocate them to specific programs and users so that it can operate the computer system efficiently and fairly.

Answer 2

This is an alternate view about the services performed by the OS. The OS system provides an orderly and controlled allocation of the processors, memories and I/O devices. When a computer has multiple users the need for managing and protecting the memory, I/O devices and other devices is greater. Thus the primary task of OS is to keep track of who is using which resource, to grant resource requests, to mediate conflicting requests from different programs etc. Resource management includes multiplexing resources in two ways - "in time" and "in space". (i)When a resource is time multiplexed different programs or different users gets their turn to use that resource. eg: Printer. (ii)When a resource is space multiplexed instead of taking turns, the resource is shared among them, ie each one gets a part of the resource. eg: Sharing main memory, hard disk etc.