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Operating Systems

The document provides an introduction to operating systems. It discusses that an OS acts as middleware between user programs and hardware, managing resources like the CPU, memory, and I/O devices. It explains that the OS loads programs into memory, virtualizes the CPU to allow multiple processes to run, and manages memory and devices through device drivers. The design goals of an OS are to provide convenience, abstraction, efficiency, and isolation. Historically, OSes evolved from libraries to using system calls and running multiple processes concurrently.

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Lucifer Morningstar
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57 views

Operating Systems

The document provides an introduction to operating systems. It discusses that an OS acts as middleware between user programs and hardware, managing resources like the CPU, memory, and I/O devices. It explains that the OS loads programs into memory, virtualizes the CPU to allow multiple processes to run, and manages memory and devices through device drivers. The design goals of an OS are to provide convenience, abstraction, efficiency, and isolation. Historically, OSes evolved from libraries to using system calls and running multiple processes concurrently.

Uploaded by

Lucifer Morningstar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lecture 1: Introduction to

Operating Systems
Mythili Vutukuru
IIT Bombay
What is an operating system?
• Middleware between
user programs and
system hardware
• Manages hardware:
CPU, main memory, IO
devices (disk, network
card, mouse,
keyboard etc.)

2
What happens when you run a
program? (Background)
• A compiler translates high level programs into an
executable (“.c” to “a.out”)
• The exe contains instructions that the CPU can
understand, and data of the program (all
numbered with addresses)
• Instructions run on CPU: hardware implements
an instruction set architecture (ISA)
• CPU also consists of a few registers, e.g.,
– Pointer to current instruction (program counter or PC)
– Operands of instructions, memory addresses 3
So, what happens when you run a
program?
• To run an exe, CPU
– fetches instruction pointed at
by PC from memory
– loads data required by the
instructions into registers
– decodes and executes the
instruction
– stores results to memory
• Most recently used
instructions and data are in
CPU caches for faster access
4
So, what does the OS do?
• OS manages program
memory
– Loads program executable
(code, data) from disk to
memory
• OS manages CPU
– Initializes program
counter (PC) and other
registers to begin
execution
• OS manages external
devices
– Read/write files from disk.

5
OS manages CPU
• OS provides the process abstraction
– Process: a running program
– OS creates and manages processes
• Each process has the illusion of
having the complete CPU, i.e., OS
virtualizes CPU
• Timeshares CPU between processes
• Enables coordination between
processes
6
OS manages memory
• OS manages the memory
of the process: code, data,
stack, heap etc
• Each process thinks it has a
dedicated memory space
for itself, numbers code
and data starting from 0
(virtual addresses)
• OS abstracts out the details
of the actual placement in
memory, translates from
virtual addresses to actual
physical addresses
7
OS manages devices
• OS has code to manage disk, network card,
and other external devices: device drivers
• Device driver talks the language of the
hardware devices
– Issues instructions to devices (fetch data from a
file)
– Responds to interrupt events from devices (user
has pressed a key on keyboard)
• Persistent data organized as a filesystem on
disk
8
Design goals of an operating system
• Convenience, abstraction of hardware
resources for user programs

• Efficiency of usage of CPU, memory, etc.

• Isolation between multiple processes

9
History of operating systems
• Started out as a library to provide common
functionality across programs
• Later, evolved from procedure call to system
call: what’s the difference?
• When a system call is made to run OS code,
the CPU executes at a higher privilege level
• Evolved from running a single program to
multiple processes concurrently

10

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