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Device-Independent I/O Software

The document discusses device-independent I/O software, user-space I/O software, and the kernel I/O subsystem. The device-independent I/O software provides a uniform interface and common functions for different devices. User-space I/O libraries like stdio provide a higher-level interface to access the kernel. The kernel I/O subsystem is responsible for scheduling I/O requests, buffering and caching data during transfers, and spooling and reserving devices.

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361 views2 pages

Device-Independent I/O Software

The document discusses device-independent I/O software, user-space I/O software, and the kernel I/O subsystem. The device-independent I/O software provides a uniform interface and common functions for different devices. User-space I/O libraries like stdio provide a higher-level interface to access the kernel. The kernel I/O subsystem is responsible for scheduling I/O requests, buffering and caching data during transfers, and spooling and reserving devices.

Uploaded by

Sabi Chaudry
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Device-Independent I/O Software

The basic function of the device-independent software is to perform the I/O functions
that are common to all devices and to provide a uniform interface to the user-level
software. Though it is difficult to write completely device independent software but we
can write some modules which are common among all the devices. Following is a list
of functions of device-independent I/O Software −

 Uniform interfacing for device drivers


 Device naming - Mnemonic names mapped to Major and Minor device numbers
 Device protection
 Providing a device-independent block size
 Buffering because data coming off a device cannot be stored in final destination.
 Storage allocation on block devices
 Allocation and releasing dedicated devices
 Error Reporting

User-Space I/O Software


These are the libraries which provide richer and simplified interface to access the
functionality of the kernel or ultimately interactive with the device drivers. Most of the
user-level I/O software consists of library procedures with some exception like spooling
system which is a way of dealing with dedicated I/O devices in a multiprogramming
system.
I/O Libraries (e.g., stdio) are in user-space to provide an interface to the OS resident
device-independent I/O SW. For example putchar(), getchar(), printf() and scanf() are
example of user level I/O library stdio available in C programming.

Kernel I/O Subsystem


Kernel I/O Subsystem is responsible to provide many services related to I/O. Following
are some of the services provided.
 Scheduling − Kernel schedules a set of I/O requests to determine a good order
in which to execute them. When an application issues a blocking I/O system
call, the request is placed on the queue for that device. The Kernel I/O
scheduler rearranges the order of the queue to improve the overall system
efficiency and the average response time experienced by the applications.
 Buffering − Kernel I/O Subsystem maintains a memory area known
as buffer that stores data while they are transferred between two devices or
between a device with an application operation. Buffering is done to cope with a
speed mismatch between the producer and consumer of a data stream or to
adapt between devices that have different data transfer sizes.
 Caching − Kernel maintains cache memory which is region of fast memory that
holds copies of data. Access to the cached copy is more efficient than access to
the original.
 Spooling and Device Reservation − A spool is a buffer that holds output for a
device, such as a printer, that cannot accept interleaved data streams. The
spooling system copies the queued spool files to the printer one at a time. In
some operating systems, spooling is managed by a system daemon process. In
other operating systems, it is handled by an in kernel thread.
 Error Handling − An operating system that uses protected memory can guard
against many kinds of hardware and application errors.

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