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Operating System Design and Implementation

An operating system provides an environment for applications and programs to interact with computer hardware. It faces challenges in its design and implementation. There are user goals like convenience and reliability, and system goals like maintainability. A key consideration is separating mechanisms, which determine how things are done, from policies, which determine what is done, so changes to policies do not require changes to mechanisms. An operating system is implemented after being designed, and while historically they used assembly, now higher-level languages are more common due to advantages in development speed, understandability, and portability, though this can incur costs in speed and storage.

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620 views

Operating System Design and Implementation

An operating system provides an environment for applications and programs to interact with computer hardware. It faces challenges in its design and implementation. There are user goals like convenience and reliability, and system goals like maintainability. A key consideration is separating mechanisms, which determine how things are done, from policies, which determine what is done, so changes to policies do not require changes to mechanisms. An operating system is implemented after being designed, and while historically they used assembly, now higher-level languages are more common due to advantages in development speed, understandability, and portability, though this can incur costs in speed and storage.

Uploaded by

Ma.Lourdes Corpuz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Operating System Design and

Implementation
Computer ScienceMCAOperating System

An operating system is a construct that allows the user application programs to interact
with the system hardware. Operating system by itself does not provide any function but
it provides an atmosphere in which different applications and programs can do useful
work.
There are many problems that can occur while designing and implementing an
operating system. These are covered in operating system design and implementation.

Operating System Design Goals


It is quite complicated to define all the goals and specifications of the operating system
while designing it.The design changes depending on the type of the operating system
i.e if it is batch system, time shared system, single user system, multi user system,
distributed system etc.
There are basically two types of goals while designing an operating system. These are
−
User Goals
The operating system should be convenient, easy to use, reliable, safe and fast
according to the users. However, these specifications are not very useful as there is no
set method to achieve these goals.
System Goals
The operating system should be easy to design, implement and maintain. These are
specifications required by those who create, maintain and operate the operating system.
But there is not specific method to achieve these goals as well.

Operating System Mechanisms and Policies


There is no specific way to design an operating system as it is a highly creative task.
However, there are general software principles that are applicable to all operating
systems.
A subtle difference between mechanism and policy is that mechanism shows how to do
something and policy shows what to do. Policies may change over time and this would
lead to changes in mechanism. So, it is better to have a general mechanism that would
require few changes even when a policy change occurs.
For example - If the mechanism and policy are independent, then few changes are
required in mechanism if policy changes. If a policy favours I/O intensive processes
over CPU intensive processes, then a policy change to preference of CPU intensive
processes will not change the mechanism.

Operating System Implementation


The operating system needs to be implemented after it is designed. Earlier they were
written in assembly language but now higher level languages are used. The first system
not written in assembly language was the Master Control Program (MCP) for Burroughs
Computers.
Advantages of Higher Level Language
There are multiple advantages to implementing an operating system using a higher
level language such as: the code is written more fast, it is compact and also easier to
debug and understand. Also, the operating system can be easily moved from one
hardware to another if it is written in a high level language.
Disadvantages of Higher Level Language
Using high level language for implementing an operating system leads to a loss in
speed and increase in storage requirements. However in modern systems only a small
amount of code is needed for high performance, such as the CPU scheduler and
memory manager. Also, the bottleneck routines in the system can be replaced by
assembly language equivalents if required.

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