What is the primary role of an operating system?

The primary role of an operating system is to manage computer hardware and software resources. This involves overseeing the system's memory, processing capabilities, storage devices, and input/output devices, ensuring that they work together optimally. The operating system acts as an intermediary between users and the hardware, facilitating the execution of applications by providing common services and a user interface.

By managing these resources, the operating system helps to ensure that programs have the necessary resources they need to run, maintains system stability, and allocates processor time efficiently among various tasks. It enables multitasking, where multiple applications can run at the same time without interfering with each other.

Other options, while related to computing, do not encapsulate the broad and critical function of an operating system. Performing calculations faster than a hardware component pertains to specific hardware functionalities rather than the operating system itself. Ensuring network connectivity is a function that the operating system can facilitate, but it is only one aspect of its broader role. Serving as a programming framework refers to development environments or application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow for software development, which is not the primary function of an operating system.