Chapter 1: Introduction

Operating System Concepts – 10h Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018
 Chapter 1: Introduction

 What Operating Systems Do

 Computer-System Organization
 Computer-System Architecture
 Operating-System Operations
 Virtualization
 Distributed Systems
 Kernel Data Structures
 Computing Environments

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 Objectives

 Describe the general organization of a computer system and the role

of interrupts
 Describe the components in a modern, multiprocessor computer
system
 Illustrate the transition from user mode to kernel mode
 Discuss how operating systems are used in various computing
environments

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 What Does the Term Operating System Mean?

 An operating system is “fill in the blanks”

 What about:
• Car
• Airplane
• Printer
• Washing Machine
• Toaster
• Compiler
• Etc.

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 What is an Operating System?

 A program that acts as an intermediary between a user of a

computer and the computer hardware
 Operating system goals:
• 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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 Computer System Structure

 Computer system can be divided into four components:

• Hardware – provides basic computing resources
 CPU, memory, I/O devices
• Operating system
 Controls and coordinates use of hardware among various
applications and users
• Application programs – define the ways in which the system
resources are used to solve the computing problems of the users
 Word processors, compilers, web browsers, database systems,
video games
• Users
 People, machines, other computers

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 Abstract View of Components of Computer

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 What Operating Systems Do
 Depends on the point of view
 Users want convenience, ease of use and good performance
• Don’t care about resource utilization
 But shared computer such as mainframe or minicomputer must keep
all users happy
• Operating system is a resource allocator and control program
making efficient use of HW and managing execution of user
programs
 Users of dedicate systems such as workstations have dedicated
resources but frequently use shared resources from servers
 Mobile devices like smartphones and tables are resource poor,
optimized for usability and battery life
• Mobile user interfaces such as touch screens, voice recognition
 Some computers have little or no user interface, such as embedded
computers in devices and automobiles
• Run primarily without user intervention
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 Defining Operating Systems

 Term OS covers many roles

• Because of myriad designs and uses of OSes
• Present in toasters through ships, spacecraft, game machines,
TVs and industrial control systems
• Born when fixed use computers for military became more
general purpose and needed resource management and
program control

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 Operating System Definition

 No universally accepted definition

 “Everything a vendor ships when you order an operating system” is a
good approximation
• But varies wildly
 “The one program running at all times on the computer” is the kernel,
part of the operating system
 Everything else is either
• A system program (ships with the operating system, but not part of
the kernel) , or
• An application program, all programs not associated with the
operating system
 Today’s OSes for general purpose and mobile computing also include
middleware – a set of software frameworks that provide additional
services to application developers such as databases, multimedia,
graphics

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 Overview of Computer System Structure

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 Computer System Organization

 Computer-system operation
• One or more CPUs, device controllers connect through common
bus providing access to shared memory
• Concurrent execution of CPUs and devices competing for memory
cycles

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 Computer-System Operation

 I/O devices and the CPU can execute concurrently

 Each device controller is in charge of a particular device type
 Each device controller has a local buffer
 Each device controller type has an operating system device driver
to manage it
 CPU moves data from/to main memory to/from local buffers
 I/O is from the device to local buffer of controller
 Device controller informs CPU that it has finished its operation by
causing an interrupt

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 Common Functions of Interrupts

 Interrupt transfers control to the interrupt service routine

generally, through the interrupt vector, which contains the
addresses of all the service routines
 Interrupt architecture must save the address of the interrupted
instruction
 A trap or exception is a software-generated interrupt caused
either by an error or a user request
 An operating system is interrupt driven

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 Interrupt Timeline

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 Interrupt Handling

 The operating system preserves the state of the CPU by

storing the registers and the program counter
 Determines which type of interrupt has occurred:
 Separate segments of code determine what action should
be taken for each type of interrupt

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 Interrupt-drive I/O Cycle

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 I/O Structure

 Two methods for handling I/O

• After I/O starts, control returns to user program only
upon I/O completion
• After I/O starts, control returns to user program without
waiting for I/O completion

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 I/O Structure (Cont.)

 After I/O starts, control returns to user program only upon I/O
completion
• Wait instruction idles the CPU until the next interrupt
• Wait loop (contention for memory access)
• At most one I/O request is outstanding at a time, no
simultaneous I/O processing
 After I/O starts, control returns to user program without waiting for
I/O completion
• System call – request to the OS to allow user to wait for I/O
completion
• Device-status table contains entry for each I/O device
indicating its type, address, and state
• OS indexes into I/O device table to determine device status
and to modify table entry to include interrupt

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 Storage Structure

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 Storage Structure
 Main memory – only large storage media that the CPU can
access directly
• Random access
• Typically volatile
• Typically random-access memory in the form of
Dynamic Random-access Memory (DRAM)
 Secondary storage – extension of main memory that provides
large nonvolatile storage capacity

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 Storage Structure (Cont.)
 Hard Disk Drives (HDD) – rigid metal or glass platters covered
with magnetic recording material
• Disk surface is logically divided into tracks, which are subdivided
into sectors
• The disk controller determines the logical interaction between
the device and the computer
 Non-volatile memory (NVM) devices– faster than hard disks,
nonvolatile
• Various technologies
• Becoming more popular as capacity and performance increases,
price drops

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 Storage Definitions and Notation Review
The basic unit of computer storage is the bit. A bit can contain one of two
values, 0 and 1. All other storage in a computer is based on collections of bits.
Given enough bits, it is amazing how many things a computer can represent:
numbers, letters, images, movies, sounds, documents, and programs, to name
a few. A byte is 8 bits, and on most computers it is the smallest convenient
chunk of storage. For example, most computers don’t have an instruction to
move a bit but do have one to move a byte. A less common term is word,
which is a given computer architecture’s native unit of data. A word is made
up of one or more bytes. For example, a computer that has 64-bit registers and
64-bit memory addressing typically has 64-bit (8-byte) words. A computer
executes many operations in its native word size rather than a byte at a time.

Computer storage, along with most computer throughput, is generally

measured and manipulated in bytes and collections of bytes. A kilobyte, or
KB , is 1,024 bytes; a megabyte, or MB, is 1,0242 bytes; a gigabyte, or GB, is
1,0243 bytes; a terabyte, or TB, is 1,0244 bytes; and a petabyte, or PB, is 1,0245
bytes. Computer manufacturers often round off these numbers and say that
a megabyte is 1 million bytes and a gigabyte is 1 billion bytes. Networking
measurements are an exception to this general rule; they are given in bits
(because networks move data a bit at a time).

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 Storage Hierarchy
 Storage systems organized in hierarchy
• Speed
• Cost
• Volatility
 Caching – copying information into faster storage system; main
memory can be viewed as a cache for secondary storage
 Device Driver for each device controller to manage I/O
• Provides uniform interface between controller and kernel

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 Storage-Device Hierarchy

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 How a Modern Computer Works

A von Neumann architecture

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 Direct Memory Access Structure

 Used for high-speed I/O devices able to transmit information

at close to memory speeds
 Device controller transfers blocks of data from buffer storage
directly to main memory without CPU intervention
 Only one interrupt is generated per block, rather than the one
interrupt per byte

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 Operating-System Operations
 Bootstrap program – simple code to initialize the system, load the
kernel
 Kernel loads
 Starts system daemons (services provided outside of the kernel)
 Kernel interrupt driven (hardware and software)
• Hardware interrupt by one of the devices
• Software interrupt (exception or trap):
 Software error (e.g., division by zero)
 Request for operating system service – system call

 Other process problems include infinite loop, processes

modifying each other or the operating system

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 Multiprogramming (Batch system)
 Single user cannot always keep CPU and I/O devices busy
 Multiprogramming organizes jobs (code and data) so CPU
always has one to execute
 A subset of total jobs in system is kept in memory
 One job selected and run via job scheduling
 When job has to wait (for I/O for example), OS switches to
another job

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 Multitasking (Timesharing)

 A logical extension of Batch systems– the CPU switches jobs

so frequently that users can interact with each job while it is
running, creating interactive computing
• Response time should be < 1 second
• Each user has at least one program executing in memory
 process
• If several jobs ready to run at the same time  CPU
scheduling
• If processes don’t fit in memory, swapping moves them
in and out to run
• Virtual memory allows execution of processes not
completely in memory

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 Memory Layout for Multiprogrammed System

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 Dual-mode Operation

 Dual-mode operation allows OS to protect itself and other

system components
• User mode and kernel mode
 Mode bit provided by hardware
• Provides ability to distinguish when system is running user
code or kernel code.
• When a user is running  mode bit is “user”
• When kernel code is executing  mode bit is “kernel”
 How do we guarantee that user does not explicitly set the mode
bit to “kernel”?
• System call changes mode to kernel, return from call resets
it to user
 Some instructions designated as privileged, only executable in
kernel mode

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 Transition from User to Kernel Mode

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 Timer
 Timer to prevent infinite loop (or process hogging resources)
• Timer is set to interrupt the computer after some time period
• Keep a counter that is decremented by the physical clock
• Operating system set the counter (privileged instruction)
• When counter zero generate an interrupt
• Set up before scheduling process to regain control or terminate
program that exceeds allotted time

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 Virtualization

 Allows operating systems to run applications within other OSes

• Vast and growing industry
 Emulation used when source CPU type different from target type (i.e.
PowerPC to Intel x86)
• Generally slowest method
• When computer language not compiled to native code –
Interpretation
 Virtualization – OS natively compiled for CPU, running guest OSes
also natively compiled
• Consider VMware running WinXP guests, each running
applications, all on native WinXP host OS
• VMM (virtual machine Manager) provides virtualization services

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 Virtualization (cont.)

 Use cases involve laptops and desktops running multiple OSes for
exploration or compatibility
• Apple laptop running Mac OS X host, Windows as a guest
• Developing apps for multiple OSes without having multiple
systems
• Quality assurance testing applications without having multiple
systems
• Executing and managing compute environments within data
centers
 VMM can run natively, in which case they are also the host
• There is no general-purpose host then (VMware ESX and Citrix
XenServer)

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 Computing Environments - Virtualization

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 Distributed Systems
 Collection of separate, possibly heterogeneous, systems networked
together
• Network is a communications path, TCP/IP most common
 Local Area Network (LAN)
 Wide Area Network (WAN)
 Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
 Personal Area Network (PAN)
 Network Operating System provides features between systems
across network
• Communication scheme allows systems to exchange messages
• Illusion of a single system

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 Computer System Architecture

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 Computer-System Architecture

 Most systems use a single general-purpose processor

• Most systems have special-purpose processors as well
 Multiprocessors systems growing in use and importance
• Also known as parallel systems, tightly-coupled systems
• Advantages include:
1. Increased throughput
2. Economy of scale
3. Increased reliability – graceful degradation or fault tolerance
• Two types:
1. Asymmetric Multiprocessing – each processor is assigned
a specie task.
2. Symmetric Multiprocessing – each processor performs all
tasks

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 Symmetric Multiprocessing Architecture

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 Dual-Core Design
 Multi-chip and multicore
 Systems containing all chips
• Chassis containing multiple separate systems

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 Non-Uniform Memory Access System

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 Clustered Systems

 Like multiprocessor systems, but multiple systems working together

• Usually sharing storage via a storage-area network (SAN)
• Provides a high-availability service which survives failures
 Asymmetric clustering has one machine in hot-standby mode
 Symmetric clustering has multiple nodes running applications,
monitoring each other
• Some clusters are for high-performance computing (HPC)
 Applications must be written to use parallelization
• Some have distributed lock manager (DLM) to avoid conflicting
operations

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 Clustered Systems

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 PC Motherboard

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 Computer System Environments

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 Computing Environments

 Traditional
 Mobile
 Client Server
 Peer-to-Peer
 Cloud computing
 Real-time Embedded

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 Traditional

 Stand-alone general-purpose machines

 But blurred as most systems interconnect with others (i.e.,
the Internet)
 Portals provide web access to internal systems
 Network computers (thin clients) are like Web terminals
 Mobile computers interconnect via wireless networks
 Networking becoming ubiquitous – even home systems
use firewalls to protect home computers from Internet
attacks

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 Mobile

 Handheld smartphones, tablets, etc.

 What is the functional difference between them and a
“traditional” laptop?
 Extra feature – more OS features (GPS, gyroscope)
 Allows new types of apps like augmented reality
 Use IEEE 802.11 wireless, or cellular data networks for
connectivity
 Leaders are Apple iOS and Google Android

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 Client Server

 Client-Server Computing
• Dumb terminals supplanted by smart PCs
• Many systems now servers, responding to requests generated by
clients
 Compute-server system provides an interface to client to
request services (i.e., database)
 File-server system provides interface for clients to store and
retrieve files

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 Peer-to-Peer

 Another model of distributed system

 P2P does not distinguish clients and servers
• Instead all nodes are considered peers
• May each act as client, server or both
• Node must join P2P network
 Registers its service with central
lookup service on network, or
 Broadcast request for service and
respond to requests for service via
discovery protocol
• Examples include Napster and Gnutella,
Voice over IP (VoIP) such as Skype

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 Cloud Computing
 Delivers computing, storage, even apps as a service
across a network
 Logical extension of virtualization because it uses
virtualization as the base for it functionality.
• Amazon EC2 has thousands of servers, millions of
virtual machines, petabytes of storage available
across the Internet, pay based on usage

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 Cloud Computing (Cont.)
 Many types
• Public cloud – available via Internet to anyone willing to pay
• Private cloud – run by a company for the company’s own use
• Hybrid cloud – includes both public and private cloud components
• Software as a Service (SaaS) – one or more applications available
via the Internet (i.e., word processor)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) – software stack ready for application
use via the Internet (i.e., a database server)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – servers or storage available
over Internet (i.e., storage available for backup use)

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 Cloud Computing (cont.)
 Cloud computing environments composed of traditional OSes, plus
VMMs, plus cloud management tools
• Internet connectivity requires security like firewalls
• Load balancers spread traffic across multiple applications

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 Real-Time Embedded Systems

 Real-time embedded systems most prevalent form of computers

• Vary considerable, special purpose, limited purpose OS, real-
time OS
• Use expanding
 Many other special computing environments as well
• Some have OSes, some perform tasks without an OS
 Real-time OS has well-defined fixed time constraints
• Processing must be done within constraint
• Correct operation only if constraints met

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 End of Chapter 1

Operating System Concepts – 10h Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2018