What is an Operating System?

• The OS is a program
– Permit easy access, control hardware, communicate between
user and software, user and hardware, software and hardware,
maintain the computer system (hardware and software)
– Users can access the OS via GUI and command line
• Kernel
– Always resident in memory
– Responsible for primary OS tasks (process management,
memory management, resource management, protection,
security)
• Device drivers
– Program interfaces between OS and peripheral devices
• Shell
– User interface, tailorable
• Utility programs
– Add on programs to further manage and fine-tune your system
(anti-viral programs, disk utilities, screen savers, etc)
 Interrupts
• The CPU’s fetch-execute cycle runs continuously
unless interrupted
– Interruptions can come from hardware or the running
program
• control+alt+delete
• mouse moved
• printer out of paper
• program has run-time error
– An interrupt interrupts the CPU at the end of fetch-
execute cycle
– Upon interrupt, CPU determines what device (or user or
software) raised interrupt
• select the proper interrupt handler (piece of OS code)
• execute interrupt handler to handle the interrupt
• resume the interrupted process
 User Interface
• GUI
– Point and click, drag, double click
– Touch screen devices use gesture-based motions (swiping,
tapping, pinching, reverse pinching)
• Command line
– Enter commands from a command line prompt
– Commands executed by an interpreter
• breaks instructions into component parts
• converts instructions to machine code and executes them
• maintains a “session”
• we examine the Bash interpreter in chapter 9
– Commands may look cryptic and be hard to learn but offer
more power and flexibility
• Linux command: find ~ -name ‘core*’ –exec rm {} \;
 Process Management and Scheduling
• Process – a running program
– Processes have a status (running, ready, waiting, stopped)
– And data (stored in memory, cache, registers)
• Process management is how the OS handles the tasks of
starting processes, managing running processes,
performing interprocess communication, terminating
processes
• Another aspect is process scheduling – selecting the next
process to run
• Scheduling algorithms include round robin, priority, first
come first serve, shortest job first, longest job first
• Processes wait in queues
– Waiting queue – waiting to be loaded into memory
– Ready queue – in memory, but not currently executing by the
CPU
– I/O queue – waiting for I/O to complete
 Memory Management
• We may not be able to fit all of our running program(s) in
memory
– We use swap space as “backing storage”
– Swap space is placed on the hard disk
• We break our programs into fixed sized units called pages
– The OS moves pages for us between swap space and memory
as needed (on demand)
• This is known as virtual memory
• Program broken into fixed sized pages
– Memory broken into fixed sized frames
• when process begins running, first pages are moved to available frames
• OS maintains page table
– CPU generates a memory address:
• page #, position on page
– Use page table to translate this to physical address
• frame #, position on frame
– If page not in memory, page fault occurs
Virtual Memory: Paging and
Page Tables
Process A page table
Page Frame Valid
0 1 T
1 - F
2 - F
3 3 T
4 0 T

Process B page table

Page Frame Valid
0 - F
1 2 T
2 - F
3 - F
4 - F
5 - F
6 - F

Valid means page in memory

 Page Faults and Swapping
• A page fault causes an interrupt
• OS uses a replacement strategy to find frame to
free
– if frame is of a page that has been modified, the page
has to be saved back to swap space
– once a frame is free, new page is loaded from swap
space into memory
– page table updated
• Movement of pages from swap space to memory
(and memory to swap space) is swapping
– swapping slows down the process because disk access
time is much slower than memory access time
 Resource Management
• The OS is also • Multitasking processes P0 & P1
responsible for – P0 opens access to file F0
maintaining all other • P0 reads datum X
system resources • P0 adds 10 to X
– disk files, tape drives, – CPU switches to P1
flash drives – P1 opens access to file F0
– network access • P1 reads datum X
– printer access • P1 subtracts 300 from X
• P1 writes new value to F0
• Most resources require
– CPU switches to P0
mutually exclusive
access – P0’s value of X is now incorrect
– no more than 1 process • This is data corruption
can access a device at a
time, others must wait
until device is free
 Deadlock
• In the above scenario,
P0 is using R0, P1 is
using R1, P0 wants to
access R1 and P1 wants
to access R0
– Deadlock

• The result is that neither P0 nor P1 can continue

• We would have to kill one of the processes to let the
other continue (restart the killed process later)
• OSs will often ignore deadlock and require that the
user discover it and kill one of the processes off
 Other OS Tasks
• File management
– Users dictate file system operations through windows
explorer or command line instructions (DOS, Linux)
• creating directories, moving files, copying files, deleting files, etc
– Every file operation is a request
• the OS must ensure that the user has access to the given resource
to perform the operation
• Protection
– Resources need protection from misuse
– Each resource has permissions associated with it (access,
read, write, execute)
– User accounts/authentication are used to establish
protection
• Security extends permissions across a network
– A user can then remotely control the computer
 Forms of Process Management
• Can the OS run more than one program at any
time?
– not simultaneously but concurrently
• One process at a time
– single tasking
– batch processing
• Concurrent processing
– multiprogramming
– multitasking
– multithreading
– multiprocessing
 Single Tasking and Batch Processing
• Single Tasking • Batch Processing
– User starts the – For multiple user systems
process
• users submit processes at any time
– Process runs to • off-line system receives requests
completion
– OS schedules processes
– If I/O is needed, CPU
– Otherwise, very similar to single
waits
tasking (one program at a time)
– User is not allowed
– No interactivity because the
to run more than 1
process may not be executed
program at a time
until the user is gone
– Most early operating • input supplied with the program
systems were single (e.g., punch cards, magnetic tape)
tasking • output sent to off-line source (tape,
– Most PC operating printer)
systems were single
tasking until mid 90s
• Concurrent
processing needs a
A Context Switch
mechanism for the • Ready queue – stores those
CPU to switch from processes available for
one process to switching
another – These are processes loaded into
memory which have either started
– New process needs to execution and been paused or can
be loaded into start execution
memory
– Old process’ status • Below, we see a switch between
(PC, IR, stack pointer, process P3 and P7
status flags, etc)
saved to memory
– New process status
(register values)
restored (from
memory)
– During the switch, the
processor is idle
 Multiprogramming & Multitasking
• Multiprogramming (or cooperative multitasking) is like
batch processing in that one process is executed at a time
except
– When a process requires I/O, it is moved to an I/O queue
– Context switch to next waiting process
– When process finishes with I/O, switch back to it
– More efficient than batch processing or single tasking because
the CPU does not remain idea during time consuming I/O, only
delay is during the context switches
• For multitasking, add a timer and before a process starts,
set the timer to some value (e.g., 10,000)
– After each machine cycle, decrement the timer
– When timer reaches 0, force a context switch to the next
process in the ready queue
– User will not notice the time it takes to cycle through the
processes
 Multitasking
• More appropriately
called competitive (or
pre-emptive)
multitasking
• Computer appears to
be executing two or
more processes
simultaneously
– it is switching quickly
between processes
• Most OSs do both
cooperative and Competitive multitasking was originally
competitive called time sharing in the 1960s
multitasking today
 Threads & Multithreading
• Threads – multiple • Multithreading is
instances of the same multitasking across both
process sharing the processes and threads
same code – Switching between threads is
– But with separate data simpler (less time consuming)
• For instance, you
might have 3 Firefox
windows open, these
are threads of the same
process
• Threads make their
way through the same
code along different
paths
– See figure to the right
 Multiprocessing
• Many computers today have multiple
processors
– Or multiple cores on one chip (a core is basically a
processor which shares pins and a cache with other
cores on the same chip)
• Multiprocessing is multitasking spread across
multiple processors
• Most OSs are capable of multiprocessing but
do not necessarily share the cores effectively
– For instance, if you have 4 cores, you would not
achieve a 4 times speedup over a computer with a
single core processor
 Booting
• Main memory (DRAM, SRAM) is volatile
– Turn off the power, lose the contents
– Turn on the power, memory is empty
• We need the OS loaded and running in memory to
load and run programs
• If you turn your computer on, how do we get the
OS loaded into memory and running when the OS
is needed to load programs into memory to run
them?
– We need a 1-time process – booting
– The boot process (or portions of it) are stored in ROM
(non-volatile memory)
 The Boot & Initialization Process
• CPU initializes itself (registers, control signals)
• BIOS performs power on self test
• Disk controllers tested
• BIOS determines where the OS is stored
• Boot loader runs to load OS (if multiple OSs available,
user might be able to select)
• OS kernel loaded and initialized
• OS runs initialization scripts
– Establish runlevel (Linux is a number from 0 to 6, windows
is safe mode, safe mode with network, user mode, etc)
• OS running, computer ready for user
– BIOS is stored in ROM
– Kernel often stored on hard disk (possibly also available on
optical disk, flash drive or over network)
Moving Around
the Linux File
System
Continued
Continued
Continued
DOS
Continued