CSC 202 – OPERATING
SYSTEMS
Overview of Operating
System
Dr. Alhassan S.
Lecturer
Department of BS, SCIS
CKT-UTAS
CSC 202 OPERATING SYSTEMS
Learning Objectives
• After this lecture you should be able to:
• Identify the key functions of an operating
system (OS).
• Discuss the evolution of operating
systems for early simple batch systems to
modern complex systems.
• Give a brief explanation of each of the
major achievements in OS research.
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The Operating System
What is an OS?
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The Operating System
• An OS is a program that controls the
execution of application programs, and
acts as an interface between
applications and the computer
hardware.
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Objectives of the OS
What are the Objectives of
an OS?
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Objectives of the OS
• Convenience.
• It makes a computer system more convenient
to use.
• Efficiency.
• It allows the computer system resources to be
used in an efficient manner.
• Ability to evolve.
• An OS permit the effective development,
testing and introduction of new system
functions without interfering with service.
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Objectives of the OS
Fig. 1 Computer Hardware and Software Structure (William, S. (2018))
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Services Provided by the OS
• It provides a variety of facilities and service
in Program Development
• It controls and handles the scheduling of
Program Execution
• It provides a uniform interface that control
program access to I/O devices
• It provides a protection mechanism to
control access to files in a multiple user
system.
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Services Provided by the OS
• It controls access to system as a whole and
to specific system resources in a shared or
public system.
• It provides a mechanism to detect and
response to errors that may occur in the
system or application programs
• It provides a good account of system usage
such as usage statistics for various resources
and monitor performance parameters
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Services Provided by the OS
• Instruction set architecture (ISA)
• It defines the list of machine language instructions that a
computer can follow
• Application binary interface (ABI)
• It defines a standard for binary portability across programs.
• Application programming interface (API)
• gives a program access to the hardware resources and services
available in a system through the user ISA supplemented with
high-level language (HLL) library calls
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Evolution of Operating Systems
• Why OS evolves
• Hardware upgrades plus new types of
hardware.
• New services. In response to user/system
managers demands.
• Fixes. In response to OS faults that are
discovered over the course of time.
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Evolution of Operating Systems
• Serial Processing
• Late 1940s – mid-1950s
• No OS
• Computers run from a console
• Problems:
• Scheduling. Time wasted in computer processing
time.
• Setup time. Time wasted in setting up a program
to run.
• Users have access to the computer in series
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Evolution of Operating Systems
• Simple Batch Systems
• The concept of a batch OS was developed to improve
Utilization.
• Mid-1950s – the 1st batch OS was developed by General
Motors for use on an IBM 701 [WEIZ81]. Refined later and used
on IBM 704
• Early 1960s – other vendors developed batch OS. E.g. IBSYS,
IBS OS for 7090/7094 computers
• Uses a piece of software called the monitor.
• Users no longer has direct access to the processors.
• The user submits the job on cards or tape to a computer
operator who batches the jobs together sequentially and
places the entire batch on an input device, for use by the
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Evolution of Operating Systems
• Simple Batch Systems
• The user submits the job on cards or tape to a
computer operator who batches the jobs together
sequentially and places the entire batch on an input
device, for use by the monitor.
• Problem
• Main memory is given to the monitor and some processor
time is consumed by the monitor.
• Processor is often idle.
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Evolution of Operating Systems
• Multiprogrammed Batch Systems
• Also known as multitasking
• Solve the problem presented by uniprogramming system
• Processes multiple programs at the same time
• Processor do not need to wait for I/O operations
• Contains the hardware the supports I/O interrupts and direct
memory access.
• Requires memory management to handle the several jobs
• Requires some form of scheduling to decide which job to run
at what time.
• It maximizes processor use
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Evolution of Operating Systems
• Time-Sharing Systems
• Provides a means by which the user interacts directly
with the computer
• Involves handling multiple interactive jobs by
multiprogramming system
• The processor time is simultaneously shared among
multiple users through terminals.
• Uses multiprogramming
• E.g. Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS)
• It minimizes response time
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Learning Objectives
• After this lecture you should be able to:
• Identify the key functions of an operating
system (OS).
• Discuss the evolution of operating
systems for early simple batch systems to
modern complex systems.
• Give a brief explanation of each of the
major achievements in OS research.
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The Operating System
MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS IN
OS RESEARCH
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Achievement in OS Research
• Major theoretical advances in the
development of operating systems:
• Process
• Memory management
• Information protection and security
• Scheduling and resource management
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Achievement in OS Research
• The Process
• First used in the 1960s by the designers of
Multics.
• It is a program in execution.
• It is an instance of a program running on a
computer.
• It is the entity that can be assigned to and
executed on a processor.
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Achievement in OS Research
• The Process
• It is a unit of activity characterized by a single
sequential thread of execution, a current state,
and an associated set of system resources.
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Achievement in OS Research
• The Process
• Major lines in Computer system development
that created problems in timing and
synchronization.
• Multiprogramming batch operation,
• Efficient use of computer resources
• Time-sharing, and
• Allow multiple users to the same system
• Real-time transaction systems.
• Handle multiple queries against database
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Achievement in OS Research
• The Process
• Main causes of program execution errors in
earlier programming
• Improper synchronization. Improper design of signaling
mechanism can result in signals being lost or duplicate signals
being received.
• Failed mutual exclusion. Errors occurring as a results of
uncontrolled accesses in same file edit by multiple users
• Nondeterminate program operation. Occur when
programs which share common memory interfere with
each other. E.g. Overwriting common memory areas.
• Deadlocks: Occurs when two or more programs hung up
waiting for each other. E.g. disk to tape copy.
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Achievement in OS Research
• The Process
• Components of a process
• An executable program
• The associated data needed by the program
(variables, work space, buffers, etc.)
• The execution context (process state) of the
program.
• It is the internal data by which the OS is able
to supervise and control the process.
• Threads. Multiple pieces of a process.
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Achievement in OS Research
• Memory Management of the OS
• Principal storage management responsibilities
of the OS
• Process isolation. Prevent processes
interference.
• Automatic allocation and management
• Support of modular programming
• Protection and access control
• Long-term storage
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Achievement in OS Research
• Memory Management of the OS
• Principal storage management responsibilities
of the OS
• Process isolation. Prevent processes
interference.
• Automatic allocation and management
• Support of modular programming
• Protection and access control
• Long-term storage
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Achievement in OS Research
• Memory Management of the OS
• Virtual memory and file system facilities
supplement the job of the OS.
• Introduction of Paging system to allow
processes to be comprised of a number of
fixe-sized blocks (pages).
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Achievement in OS Research
• Information Protection and Security
• Categories of protections offered by OS
• Availability: Concerned with protecting the system
against interruption.
• Confidentiality: Assures that users cannot read
data for which access is unauthorized.
• Data integrity: Protection of data from
unauthorized modification.
• Authenticity: Concerned with the proper
verification of the identity of users and the validity
of messages or data.
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Achievement in OS Research
• Scheduling and Resource Management
• Factors considered by OS in SRM
• Fairness. Give equal and fair access to resource
by competing processes
• Differential responsiveness. Discriminate
among different classes of jobs with different
service requirements.
• Efficiency. Attempt to maximize throughput,
minimize response time and accommodate many
users as possible.
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Achievement in OS Research
• Scheduling and Resource Management
• The OS maintains a number of Queues
• Short-term queue. Handled by the short-
term scheduler.
• Round-robin technique. Gives each process
in the queue some time in turn.
• Long-term queue
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Trends in Modern OS
• Modern Approaches to OS design
• Microkernel architecture
• Replaces the monolithic kernel.
• It assigns only a few essential functions to
the kernel, e.g. address space management,
interprocess communication (IPC), and basic
scheduling.
• It simplifies implementation, provides
flexibility, and is well suited to a distributed
environment.
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Trends in Modern OS
• Modern Approaches to OS design
• Multithreading
• It is a technique in which a process,
executing an application, is divided into
threads that can run concurrently.
• It is useful for applications that perform a
number of essentially independent tasks
that do not need to be serialized.
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Trends in Modern OS
• Modern Approaches to OS design
• Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)
• Replaces the uniprocessor architecture
• The OS of an SMP schedules processes or
threads across all of the processors.
• Advantages:
• Greater performance
• Availability of processors at all times
• Incremental growth
• Scaling
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Trends in Modern OS
• Modern Approaches to OS design
• Object-oriented design
• It facilitates the process of adding modular
extensions to a small kernel.
• Programmers can customize an OS without
disrupting system integrity.
• It eases the development of distributed tools
and full-blown distributed OS.
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Review Questions
• What are three objectives of an OS design?
• What is the kernel of an OS?
• What is multiprogramming?
• What is a process?
• What is time slicing?
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Review Questions
• How is the execution context of a process
used by the OS?
• List and briefly explain five storage
management responsibilities of a typical OS.
• Describe the round-robin scheduling
technique.
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