Operating Systems

ECEG-5202

Introduction

Surafel Lemma Abebe (Ph. D.)

 Outline
• What is an operating system?
• History of operating systems
• Operating system structures
• Computer system overview

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 What is Operating System?

• Modern computer parts

– Processors + memory + disks + keyboard + …
– Challenge for program developers
• Understanding and managing components
• Optimum use
– Solution
• Operating system
– Provides user programs with a better, simpler, cleaner model of the computer
– Manages all the resources
– Mode of operation
• Kernel mode and User mode

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 What is Operating System?...
• Distinction between kernel and user modes
– Software in user mode can be replaced
– Location of the software
– Complexity and size
– Age
• E.g. Windows 95, 98, and Me were basically one OS
Same for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7

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 What is Operating System?...
• What is an OS?
– Software that runs in kernel mode

– A program that acts as an intermediary between a user of a computer and the computer
hardware

– Set of programs that controls a computer

– Software that controls the hardware …. 1960’s definition

• No universally accepted definition

– “Everything a vendor ships when you order an operating system” is a good approximation
• But varies wildly

• Goals of OS
– Execute user programs and make solving user problems easier
– Make the computer system convenient to use
– Use the computer hardware in an efficient manner

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 What is Operating System?...
• Functions (jobs) of OS
– Provide abstract set of resources
• Create good abstractions and then implement and manage the
abstract objects created
– Top-down view
• Abstraction for application programmers (provided by OS)
Vs.
Abstraction for end users (provided by UI)

• Why abstraction?
– Standardization (e.g., device drivers)
– Easy to use functions (e.g., file abstraction)
– To transform the computer hardware into multiple virtual computers
(e.g., processes view of the hardware)
– To enforce security

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 What is Operating System?...
• Functions (jobs) of OS…
– Manage hardware resources
• Provide for an orderly and controlled allocation of the
resources among the various programs wanting them
– Bottom-up view

• Keep track of which programs are using which resource, to

grant resource requests, to account for usage, and to
mediate conflicting requests
• Resource management includes multiplexing (sharing)
• Multiplexing (sharing) resources
– Time multiplexing
– Space multiplexing

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 History of OS
• Development of OS is closely tied to the development of computer
systems
• Map OS generations to computer generation

• First digital computer

– Charles Babbage (1792-1871)
– Analytical engine – never worked properly
– No OS – but he realized the need for software
• Ada Lovelace was the first programmer

• First generation: 1940’s

– No operating system
– Programming languages were unknown
– Uses plug boards (mechanical switches)
– Used by engineers
– Used to solve simple problems
• E.g., Tables of sines and cosines, artillery trajectories
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 History of OS…
• Second generation: 1950’s
– First OS built

– Single-stream batch processing systems

• Programs and data were submitted in groups or batches
• Ran one job at a time

– Used for scientific and engineering

calculations
• E.g., solving partial differential equations

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 History of OS…
• Third generation: 1960’s
– Used integrated circuits
• Major price/performance advantage over 2nd generation machines
– Batch processing systems
– First OS related bugs were introduced
– Features
• Multiprogramming
– Several programs run at the same time sharing the machine, i.e., I/O and CPU
» A job runs until it performs I/O
– Achieved through memory partitioning
• Spooling (simultaneous peripheral operations on line)
– Load jobs from the disk and write outputs to disk
• Time-sharing
– Allowed to multi-program large number of simultaneous interactive users
– MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service)

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 History of OS…
• Fourth generation: 1980 – present
– With advent of Large Scale Integration (LSI) circuits OS
entered the era of microcomputers
– Two OSs dominated
• MS-DOS
– Windows OSs
• UNIX
– Different UNIX flavors such as Linux
– Mac OS X
– GUI introduced

– Network OS
– Distributed OS

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 History of OS…
• Fifth generation: 1990 – to present
– Result of mobile phone development
• From “the brick” to what we have now
– Different OS developed

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 OS Structure
• Monolithic Systems
– Entire OS runs as a single program in kernel mode
– Advantage
• Efficient
– Each procedure in a system is free to call any other procedure
– Disadvantage
• Difficult to manage and understand
– No information hiding
• A crash in a procedure could take down the entire system
– Basic structure:
• Main procedure
• Service procedure, and;
• Utility procedure
– Many support loadable extensions

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 OS Structure…
• Layered Systems
– Organizes OS as a hierarchy of layers
– Examples
• THE system
Layer Function
5 The operator
4 User programs
3 Input/Output management
2 Operator-process communication
1 Memory and drum management
0 Processor allocation and multiprogramming
• MULTICS system
– Uses a series of concentric rings
– Inner rings are more privileged than the outer rings

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 OS Structure…
• Microkernels
– Idea: Achieve high reliability by splitting the OS up into small,
well-defined modules
– The microkernel module will only run in kernel mode
• Compare a bug in a module with a bug in monolithic system
– Example: MINIX

– Another approach to have minimal kernel

• Decoupling policy and mechanism

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 OS Structure…
• Client-server model

– Involves two classes of processes:

• Servers
• Clients
– Message passing is used for communication

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 OS Structure…
• Virtual machines
– Why we need them?
• Minimize cost
– A single machine could run multiple servers, without having a
crash of one server bringing down the rest
• Gain control over the server software
– E.g., in web hosting
• Flexibility
– Running multiple OSes
– Type 1 hypervisor
– Problem
• On x86, trying to execute privileged instructions in user
mode is ignored
• The CPU is not virtualizable
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 OS Structure…
• Virtual machines…
– Solution
• Interpreters
• Disadvantage
– Performance loss
• Solution (1)
– Machine simulators ((b) in the figure)
– Not so fast for commercial purpose
• Solution (2)
– Add a kernel module ((c) in figure)

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 OS Structure…
• Exokernels
– Partition resources and allocate them to virtual
machines
– Makes sure each machine uses its own resources
– Advantage
• Saves a layer mapping
– Tracks the resources assigned to a virtual machine
• Has less overhead
– Keep a virtual machines out of the other virtual machine
space

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 Computer System Overview
• Basic elements

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 Computer System Overview…
• Instruction execution
– Steps involved in instruction processing
• Processor reads (fetches) an instruction from memory
– Loads the instruction into instruction register (IR)
• Execute the instruction
– Instruction cycle
• Processing required for
single instruction
• Reasons for halting program execution
– Processor turned off
– Unrecoverable error occurs
– Program instruction that halts the processors
• Program counter
– Holds the address of the next instruction to be fetched
– After each instruction fetch, it is incremented by one or by what is indicated in
an instruction

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 Computer System Overview…
• Instruction execution…
– Instruction
• Contains bits that specify the action the processor is to take
– Processor interprets instruction and performs the
required action
Action category Description
Processor-memory Data may be transferred from processor to memory or from memory to processor
Processor-I/O Data may be transferred to or from a peripheral device by transferring between
the processor and an I/O module
Data processing Processor may perform some arithmetic or logic operation on data
Control An instruction may specify that the sequence of execution be altered

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 Computer System Overview…
• Instruction execution…
– Example
• Instruction and data are 16bits long

• Opcode (4 bits)
– 0001 = load AC from memory
– 0010 = store AC to memory
– 0101 = add to AC from memory
• Accumulator (AC) = Temporary register
• Memory is organized as a sequence of 16bits
(– hexadecimal is used in figure)

• For simplicity, no MAR and MBR

• Initial PC = 300
• Question
– What does the instruction execution do?
Show all steps of the execution.
• Answer
– Add contents of two memory locations

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 Computer System Overview…
• Interrupts
– Interrupt the normal sequence of the processor
– Used to improve processor utilization

– Interrupts and instruction cycle

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 Computer System Overview…
• Interrupts…
– Interrupt handler routine is usually part of the OS
• Determines the nature of interrupt
– Classes of interrupts

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 Computer System Overview…
• Multiple interrupts
– Two ways
• Disable interrupt
– Interrupt remains pending if another interrupt is being handled
– Advantage
» Simple, interrupts are handled in strict sequential order
– Limitation
» Doesn’t take relative priority into consideration
• Priority based interrupt
– Allows an interrupt of higher priority to cause a lower-priority
interrupt handler to be interrupted
– E.g., interrupt form a printer, a disk, and a communication line
with increasing priorities

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 Computer System Overview…
• Memory Hierarchy
– Design considerations
• How much? How fast? How expensive?
– Tradeoffs/relationships
• Fast access time, greater cost per bit
• Greater capacity, smaller cost per bit
• Greater capacity, slower access speed
– Challenge for design
• Using large-capacity memory while meeting
performance requirements
– Solution
• Memory hierarchy
• As one goes down the hierarchy
– Decreasing cost per bit
– Increasing capacity
– Increasing access time
– Decreasing frequency of access by processor
» Locality of reference

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 Computer System Overview…
• I/O communication techniques
– Three techniques
– Programmed I/O
• Performs the requested action and sets the appropriate bits in the
I/O status register
• Doesn’t interrupt the process after performing the requested
action
• Process has to take active role to determine when I/O instruction
is completed

• Drawback
– Processor has to wait a long time for the I/O module of concern to be
ready
– Processor has to repeatedly check the status of the I/O module

=> Low system performance

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 Computer System Overview…
• I/O communication techniques…
– Interrupt-driven I/O
• I/O module will interrupt the processor and request to
exchange data
• Requires active intervention of the processor to
transfer data between memory and an I/O module

• Drawbacks
– I/O transfer rate is limited by the speed with which the
processor can test and service a device
– Processor is tied up in managing an I/O transfer

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 Computer System Overview…
• I/O communication techniques…
– Direct memory access (DMA)
• Efficient when transferring a large volumes of data is required
• Communication is performed by a separate module, DMA module
• DMA module
– Transfers the entire block of data to or from memory
– Send an interrupt signal to the processor
• Processor communicates with the module only 2 times
– While submitting the read/write job
– While an interrupt signal is sent to the processor
• Competition for the bus with the processor
– Processor executes more slowly during DMA transfer, if the processor
requires access to the bus
• DMA is efficient than both interrupt-driven or programmed I/O

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 Computer System Overview…
• Multicore and multiprocessor organization
– For improved performance and reliability
– Symmetric multiprocessors (SMP)
• SMP characteristics
– There are 2 or more similar processors of comparable capability
– The processors share the same main memory and I/O facilities
– All processors share access to I/O devices
– All processors can perform the same functions
– Controlled by an integrated OS
• Advantages
– Performance
– Availability
– Incremental growth
– Scaling

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 Computer System Overview
…
• Multicore and multiprocessor organization…
– Multicore computers (aka. Chip multiprocessors)
• Combines 2 or more processors (also called core) on a
single piece of silicon (called a die)
• Each core contain all components of a processor
• Motivation
– Improve performance
=> Put multiple processors and a substantial amount of cache
memory on a single chip

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