COMPSCI 340 and SOFTENG 370 Operating Systems Tutorials

Lecturer
Robert Sheehan ([email protected])
Rm 303.488
office hours – Wednesday 2pm Friday 4pm 260-092 (Owen G Glenn, Room 092)
Thursday 10am Some of the lecture sessions may be tutorials as well.
Textbook Start 31st of July
Operating System Concepts (9th edition) – Silberschatz, Galvin and
Gagne. The ebook version from au.wiley.com is $50.00AUD. Not compulsory
http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-EHEP002013.html
Sample topics for the first few weeks:
Test (10%) Setting up VMWare player and installing Ubuntu – use multiple cores
Wednesday 26th August, during the lecture time Install dev packages

Python Programming with curses

Exam (70%) - access to Unix commands such as pipe, fork, pid
TBA - redirecting stdio

Three Assignments (20%)

Web site - www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/compsci340sc
You have to pass the assignments and exams separately,
and get an overall pass.
Assignment pass grade >25%.

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What is an Operating System? Are these things part of the OS?

file system
Examples communication system
MacOS X process manager
Windows security manager
Linux memory manager
UNIX graphical user interface
Plan9 backup system
Amoeba web browser
OpenVMS (Virtual Memory System) media player
VM/CMS (Conversational Monitor System) compiler
z/OS (IBM) Java (or .Net) environment
Symbian
Android
iOS

The software which makes the computer usable.

It is impossible to use modern machines without an OS.

The collection of software sold (or freely available) as

an OS.

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 Extreme approaches Usable vs Efficient

Some OSs are designed for specific needs

factory control systems
aircraft control
database servers
phones
Minimalist understanding
OS software is the minimum amount of software required to Others are general purpose
allow the computer to function. desktop computers
kernel – usually in memory always phones
process/thread management
communications A trade off between usability and efficiency.
memory management
Usable – for whom?
file management
the developer of the system
monolithic and micro-kernels.
a software engineer or computer scientist
Maximalist understanding a data entry operator
All the software which comes with a standard release of the a child
OS. a person with a disability
many utilities and programs an “ordinary” user

Efficient
real-time systems
dealing with many thousands of transactions a second
battery life

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OS Themes OS Themes (cont.)

Manager model
The OS is a collection of managers.
It prevents improper use of devices.
Each manager is independent
and maintains tables of information

Resource allocator model

Related to the manager model.
The emphasis is on providing the services programs need.
Must be fair. (Whatever that means.)
Onion model Dustbin model
The OS is a series of layers. This sees the OS as all the bits no one else wants to do.
Outer layers can access resources contained in inner layers.
But not vice-versa.
Getting work done model
We only use computers to do something else:
write an essay
calculate a mortgage repayment
find information
download a song
play a game
make a phone call
The OS has to help us to get our work done.

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 Things I expect you to know. Things you should know by the end.

You should be able to discuss questions like

You should have some idea of
these intelligently by the end of the course.
• interrupts
How does typing a key cause a character to appear in a
• security & protection
window on the display?
• file systems
How does your computer safely keep several applications
• virtual memory running at once?
• processes and threads How do remote files look as though they are local?
How does processing get distributed over multiple cores?
The first assignment will require Python How does the failure of a computing resource get handled to
programming. You need to get comfortable minimize the disruption to the wider system?
with Python. What happens when you plug a new USB device into your
computer?

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OS DESIGN MS-DOS
All in one – all OS components can freely interact with Written to provide the most functionality in the
each other. least space
MS-DOS
not divided into modules
Early UNIX
Although MS-DOS has some structure, its interfaces and
Separate layers – see the Onion model. levels of functionality are not well separated
This simplifies verification and debugging.
Very hard to get the design correct.
Can be inefficient – lots of layers to go through to get work
done.
THE
OS/2
Modules – like the all-in-one but only loaded when
necessary
Linux, Windows
Microkernels
Use client/server model.
Many modern general-purpose OSs use this approach
(although that doesn’t mean they are microkernel OSs)
Mach (basis for MacOS X)
QNX RT-OS
Exokernels - more radical microkernels
Virtual Machines
VM/CMS
Java

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 Early UNIX THE Multiprogramming system
The UNIX OS consists of two separable parts. A layered design was first used in the THE
Systems programs operating system. 

The kernel Its six layers were:
Consists of everything below the system-call interface and
above the physical hardware
Provides the file system, CPU scheduling, memory
management, and other operating-system functions; a large
number of functions for one level.

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Windows NT client/server Before the next lecture

Windows NT provided environmental

subsystems to run code written to different
OS APIs.

Windows NT (and successors) is a hybrid Read textbook

system. What Operating Systems Do 1.1
Parts are layered but some of the layers have been merged to Operating System Structure 2.7
improve performance. Linux 18.1, 18.2
Many OS services are provided by user-level servers Windows 7 19.1, 19.2
e.g. the environmental subsystems.
Preparation for next time
The POSIX subsystem is now called Interix and includes open
1.2 Computer-System Organization
source programs and libraries (not after Windows 8)
1.4 Operating-System Structure
1.5 Operating-System Operations

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