Lecture 5

Operating Systems

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Lecture Outline
1.Functionality of Operating
System (OS)
2.Survey of Common Operating
Systems
3.Lecture References

The Role of An OS
User/ programmer convenience:
simple, consistent way for
applications to interact with
the hardware.
Greater resource utilization:
manages the hardware and
software resources of the
computer system, often invisibly.

Benefit for application developers

Dont have to manage hardware complexity:
Application developers can design software for
an OS and it will run on all machines that
support that OS.
The OS hides and manages the hardware
complexity and provide an Application
Programmer Interface (API).

OS Components
Device
Manager
File
Manager
Loader

Kernel
Command
Interpreter
(Shell)
GUI

Kernel
The heart of the OS
Responsible for all the essential operations
like managing resources, task scheduling, etc.
Also contains low-level HW interfaces.
Size important, as it is memory-resident

Core Tasks of an OS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Processor management
Memory management
Device management
Storage management
Application Interface
User Interface

Processor Management
Various programs compete for the attention of
the microprocessor.
The OS plays the role of the honest referee,
making sure that each application gets the
necessary attention required for its proper
execution.
It tries to optimally manages the limited
processing capacity of the microprocessor to
the greatest good of all the users & apps

Memory Management
Straight forward for a single-user, single
tasking
The OS ensures that:
each application has enough private memory
applications do not run into other applications
private memory.

The OS is responsible for efficient utilization

of hierarchical system memory (e.g. RAM,
cache, etc.).

Storage Management
A file system is a collection of directories,
subdirectories, and files organized in a logical
order
The OS is responsible for maintaining the file
system through indexing of filenames and their
disk location.
The OS can find any file in a logical and timely
fashion

Device Management
Applications talk to devices through the OS and
OS talks to and manages devices through
device drivers
Example: When we print to a laser printer, we
do not need to know its details. All we do is to
tell the printer device driver about what needs
to be printed and it takes care of the details

Application Interface
Application developers do not need to know
much about the hardware
The OS provides all applications with a straightforward and consistent interface to hardware
Example: An application uses the OS to store
data on the disk drive without knowing exact
physical characteristics of the disk.

User Interface
Users communicate with the computer using a
consistent user interface provided by the OS
This UI can be a command-line interface in which a
user types in the commands. Example:
copy a:/file1.html c:/file1.html
Or, it can be a graphical UI, where Windows, Icons,
Menus, and a Pointing device (such as a mouse) is
used to receive and display information. Example:
With the help of the mouse, drag file1.html
from drive a to drive c

Types of Operating Systems

Classification according to type of computers
and applications they support
1.
2.
3.
4.

Real-Time Operating System (RTOS)

Single-User, Single Task
Single-User, Multi-Tasking
Multi-User

RTOS
Used to run computers embedded in
machinery, robots, scientific instruments and
industrial systems
An important part of an RTOS is managing the
resources of the computer so that a particular
operation executes in precisely the same
amount of time every time it occurs
Examples: QNX, Real-time Linux

Single-User, Single Task

OS designed to manage the computer so that
one user can effectively do one thing at a time
Example: MS-DOS is an example singletasking single-user OS with a command line
interface.

Single-User, Multi-Tasking
Most popular OS
Used by most of PCs and Laptops
Lets a single user interact with several
programs, simultaneously
Examples: Windows, Mac OS, Linux

Multi-User
A multi-user OS allows many users to take
advantage of the computer's resources,
simultaneously

Examples: Linux, Unix, Windows Terminal Server

Survey of common
Operating
Systems

for1. PCs

2. Embedded
Systems

Personal
Computer (PC)
Operating Systems
1.Microsoft OS
2.Unix or Unix-like
OS
3.Other OS

Microsoft
Operating System

Disk Operating System (DOS)

UNIX or UNIX-like
Operating System

Linux

Other
Operating
Systems

Embedded
Operating Systems
Microsoft CE
Android
Other Embedded OS

Pocket PC
OS

Palm OS

Symbian
OS

OS
Survey
Summary


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a)
The
primary role of OS: 1) simple,
S
consistent way for applications to
interact with the hardware & 2) to
efficiently utilize HW/ SW
resources.
b) Main OS tasks: manages 1)
processor, 2) memory, 3) HW
devices, 4) storage of computer
systems; 5) provides the
application and the user interface.


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s nce
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for this week

Using operating systems

and

Survey of PC and Network

OS

for next week

Networking basics and
Data Communications

??

Questions/
? Confusions?
Credits/ Acknowledgement can
be found at the course
website:
http://tinyurl.com/5hb8pp