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OS Design and Implementation

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OS Design and Implementation

Uploaded by

ABDUL QUDOOS
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Duration: 1 Hour Degree: BSCS Course Code: BCS- Semester: 4th

2411
1

Chapter 2
OS design and implementation
Operating Systems
Lecturer: Sana Rehman
2 Design Goals

 OS face several problems while designing and implementing


 Not all are solvable, but some solutions are possible.
 Define goals and specifications.
 The design of the system will be affected by the choice of hardware and the type of
system: batch (multiple users using at same time), time sharing (multiple users using
at different times), single user, multiuser, distributed, real time (real time applications),
or general purpose.
Requirements
 The requirements can be divided into two basic groups: user goals and system goals.
3 Continued….
User Goals
 Users want certain obvious properties in a system.
 The system should be convenient to use, easy to learn and to use, reliable, safe, and fast.
System Goals
 The system should be easy to design, implement, and maintain; and it should be flexible,
reliable, error free, and efficient.
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Continued….
 There is, in short, no unique solution to the problem of defining the requirements for an
operating system.
 The wide range of systems in existence shows that different requirements can result in a
large variety of solutions for different environments.
 Specifying and designing an operating system is a highly creative task.
 General principles have been developed in the field of software engineering.
5 Mechanism and Policy
 One important principle is the separation of policy from mechanism.
 Mechanisms determine how to do something; policies determine what will be done.
Example
 The timer construct is a mechanism for ensuring CPU protection, but deciding how long
the timer is to be set for a particular user is a policy decision.
 The separation of policy and mechanism is important for flexibility.
 Policies are likely to change across places or over time
6 Implementation
 Once an operating system is designed, it must be implemented.
 Operating systems are collections of many programs, written by many people over a long
period of time, it is difficult to make general statements about how they are implemented.
Languages
 Early operating systems were written in assembly language.
 Some operating systems are still written in assembly language, most are written in a
higher-level language such as C or an even higher-level language such as C++.
 An operating system can be written in more than one language.
 The lowest levels of the kernel might be assembly language.
 Higher-level routines might be in C, and system programs might be in C or C++, in
interpreted scripting languages like PERL or Python, or in shell scripts.
 A given Linux distribution probably includes programs written in all of those languages.
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Continued….
Advantages of using high-level languages
 The advantages of using a higher-level language for implementing operating systems are the
same as those gained when the language is used for application programs: the code can be
written faster, is more compact, and is easier to understand and debug.
 Improvements in compiler technology will improve the generated code for the entire
operating system by simple recompilation.
 An operating system is far easier to port—to move to some other hardware— if it is written
in a higher-level language.
Example
 MS-DOS was written in Intel 8088 assembly language.
 Consequently, it runs natively only on the Intel X86 family of CPUs.
 Can be run on other computers through emulation (reproduction of a function of another
computer)
 Emulators are programs that duplicate the functionality of one system on another system.
 Disadvantages of implementing an operating system in a higher-level language are reduced
speed and increased storage requirements.

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