Module introduction

Welcome back. You've learned about the basics of computing with binary and the hardware layer of the computer architecture. Now, it's time to move on to the next layer, the operating system. By the end of this lesson, you'll know what an operating system is, and what makes up an operating system. You also get some hands-on experience with the three biggest operating systems used today. Before we get deeper into operating systems, I'd like to introduce myself to you. My name is Cindy Gouache and I'm a Site Reliability Engineer at Google. The team I work on is responsible for the management and support of Google's entire internal mobile fleet. Android OS, IOS, and Chrome OS. Before focusing on mobile, I was a systems administrator on the Linux team. Before that, I was an Operations Engineer. But like a lot of the Googlers you've met and will meet, I started my career as an IT support specialist. I've been working in IT for seven years now. The first time I can remember interacting with computers was in middle school when my teacher brought them into our classroom so we could create fun video and multimedia projects. It was my brother who brought technology into our house. My parents were immigrants from Vietnam and we didn't have a lot of money growing up. We had to be creative if we wanted to play with a computer at home. I can remember spending hours with my brother as he assembled a computer and I will just ask a million questions. Eventually, I wanted to try and build my own computer, so I gathered up some old parts and save money to buy new components. I finally put all the parts together from what I remembered my brother doing, but it just didn't work. It turns out that I use some incompatible parts. But through a lot of trial and error, troubleshooting, and long search sessions on the Internet, I finally got it to work. The feeling I got when I heard my computer boot up for the first time was amazing. Before I knew it, I also worked on computers. I really enjoyed the intense concentration and problem-solving required in IT. But I didn't think a career in tech was even possible back then. Once I got to college, I had to find a job to help pay for tuition and that job was an IT support specialist on campus. That's when I realized that take is actually something I could pursue as a career. Operating systems aren't essential part of IT support. Everyone uses their computer to accomplish something. Whether that's browsing the web, writing a novel, making graphics, playing video games, etc. Whatever the case may be, they need to interact with their operating system to do it. IT support, it's essential to understand how operating systems work, so you can help someone accomplish the task they set out to do. Whether that's figuring out why an application won't start, why the graphics look funny on their video games or anything else. Things can get really messy and challenging, and that's part of the fun. Let's begin.