Glossary

A physical device that is either attached to or part of your computer. In most cases, a driverEach piece of hardware that is attached to or is part of your computer speaks a different language, and works in a different way. Using your computer would be impossible if your OS could not talk to these devices. Having your OS know how to talk to every piece of hardware out there is not realistic,. Instead, the manufacturer of the hardware writes a driver for it. This driver is a translator that speaks both the language of your OS and the language of the hardware. is required to allow your computer's operating systemAn Operating System, or OS, is a piece of software that allows a computer how to interact with a person, and how to allow that person to use any devices (such as a keyboard or mouse) attached to the computer. If your computer was a car, you could think of your OS as being your brakes, steering wheel, turn signal, and other things that you use to control your car. There are a bunch of different OSes out there, just like there are different car manufacturers. Some OSes include: Microsoft Windows Apple MacOS X the many flavors of Linux, including: Ubuntu Fedora SuSE to talk to the device. Examples include:

• monitor
• keyboard
• mouse
• motherboard
• video card