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Structures of Operating Systems: Simple Structure

Operating system structures can be simple or layered. A simple structure, like MS-DOS, does not separate interfaces or functionality well and causes crashes if a user program fails. A layered structure, like UNIX, breaks the OS into layers with each layer only using functions of lower layers, making debugging and enhancement easier but reducing performance.

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Muhammad Mohsin
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301 views2 pages

Structures of Operating Systems: Simple Structure

Operating system structures can be simple or layered. A simple structure, like MS-DOS, does not separate interfaces or functionality well and causes crashes if a user program fails. A layered structure, like UNIX, breaks the OS into layers with each layer only using functions of lower layers, making debugging and enhancement easier but reducing performance.

Uploaded by

Muhammad Mohsin
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Structures of Operating Systems

Operating system can be implemented with the help of various structures. The structure
of the OS depends mainly on how the various common components of the operating
system are interconnected and melded into the kernel. Depending on this we have
following structures of the operating system: 
Simple structure: 
Such operating systems do not have well defined structure and are small, simple and
limited systems. The interfaces and levels of functionality are not well separated. MS-
DOS is an example of such operating system. In MS-DOS application programs are able
to access the basic I/O routines. These types of operating system cause the entire system
to crash if one of the user programs fails. 
Diagram of the structure of MS-DOS is shown below. 
 

Advantages of Simple structure: 


 It delivers better application performance because of the few interfaces between
the application program and the hardware.
 Easy for kernel developers to develop such an operating system.
Disadvantages of Simple structure: 
 The structure is very complicated as no clear boundaries exists between modules.
 It does not enforce data hiding in the operating system.
Layered structure: 
An OS can be broken into pieces and retain much more control on system. In this
structure the OS is broken into number of layers (levels). The bottom layer (layer 0) is the
hardware and the topmost layer (layer N) is the user interface. These layers are so
designed that each layer uses the functions of the lower level layers only. This simplifies
the debugging process as if lower level layers are debugged and an error occurs during
debugging then the error must be on that layer only as the lower level layers have already
been debugged. 
The main disadvantage of this structure is that at each layer, the data needs to be
modified and passed on which adds overhead to the system. Moreover careful planning of
the layers is necessary as a layer can use only lower level layers. UNIX is an example of
this structure. 
 

Advantages of Layered structure:


 Layering makes it easier to enhance the operating system as implementation of a
layer can be changed easily without affecting the other layers.
 It is very easy to perform debugging and system verification.
Disadvantages of Layered structure:
 In this structure the application performance is degraded as compared to simple
structure. 
 It requires careful planning for designing the layers as higher layers use the
functionalities of only the lower layers.

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