Introduction to Operating System

Introduction to Operating System

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Table of Contents: 
  1. Introduction 
    1. User View 
    2. System View 
    3. Defining the Operating System 
  2. Operating System Structure 
  3. Operating System Operation 
    1. Dual-Mode and Multimode Operations 
  4. Process Management 
  5. Memory Management 
  6. Storage Management 
    1. File System Management 
    2. Mass-Storage Management 
    3. Caching 
    4. I/O Systems 
  7. Protection and Security 
  8. Kernel Data Structures


1- Introduction


An operating system is a program that manages a computer's hardware. It also provides a basis for application programs and act as an intermediary between the computer user and computer hardware. An amazing secret of OS is how they vary in accomplishing these tasks. Mainframe operating systems are designed primarily to optimize utilization of hardware. Mainframes operating systems focus on multi-programming techniques instead of multi-tasking, we will discuss these techniques later. In mainframe operating system, user iteration is not frequent. Personal Computers (PC) operating system support complex games, business and programming software and compilers respectively, and everything in between. Operating System for mobile computers provides an environment in which user can easily interface with the computer to execute programs. So we can say that, some computers are designed to be convenient, others to be efficient and may be some OS is the combination of both. Before we explore the details of the computer system operation, we need to know something about computer structure. A computer system can be divided roughly into four components:
  1. Hardware 
  2. The Operating System
  3. Application Programs
  4. The user
Abstract View of an Operating System


The hardware -- Central Processing System (CPU), the memory, and the input/output devices -- provides the basic computing resources to the system. The application programs -- such as the word processor, spreadsheets, compilers and web browsers define the in which these resources are used to solve user's computing problems. OS control hardware and coordinate its use among different application program and users. We can also view an operating system as hardware, software, and data. The operating system is similar to Database Administrator (DBA). Like DBA, it also defines access to shared resources between application programs and different user of the system. Because an operating system is large and complex. It must be created piece by piece. Each of these pieces should be a well-delineated portion of the system, with carefully defined inputs, outputs, and functions. To understand fully about operating system, let's talk about the view of operating system. There are the follow two views of operating system.
  1. User View
  2. System View
                                                                                                   Next -- User View and System View 
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