is the OS a process itself?

Question

I am recently develop a big interest to learn about operating systems and I have been studying about this topic, I have a question that I am not pretty sure if is a valid one.

I am aware that the OS is the one who controls the process but,

is the OS a process itself? If so, who controls the OS?

Sorry for my ignorance I am learning about operating system and I am trying to have a solid idea about how it works.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The term OS comes with some ambiguities... Does the user interface count as the OS? What about software that reads file systems?

The Kernel is generally the most important aspect of an Operating System. The Kernel is responsible for scheduling threads and processes, as well as abstracting the hardware from the software. The kernel itself is NOT a process, but it is a program. It's a program that always exists in every process space. When a process needs to access hardware, the kernel takes over and returns a response to the process. When the process's allotted time on the CPU is over, the kernel takes over and gives the CPU to a new process.

Other aspects of an Operating System, however, are their own processes. For example, on Windows, the user interface and many background services are their own processes. On Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems, the User Interfaces are also in their own respective processes, and in some cases things like filesystem drivers are in their own process as well, sometimes this is considered a hardware abstraction and is therefore placed in the kernel.

There are many possible design choices, however when it comes down to it there will always be a part of the operating system (the Kernel) that will never be it's own process.