Difference between revisions of "Roles of the Operating System"
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===Role #1: Provide resourse=== | ===Role #1: Provide resourse=== | ||
Revision as of 01:26, 30 November 2008
COMP1260 > Roles of the Operating System
IntroductionYou would understand how difficult to operate a computer in earlier days, if you have known about the history of operating system. So the Operating systems are designed to make life easier by provide uniform abstraction across multiple applications and the fair sharing of resources. The operating system communicates both with the different hardware components of the computer as well as additional software applications the user may add on to the computer. Operating systems are also act as a vital part of the computing experience. Take Microsoft’s Operating systems as examples, they have come a long way since the days of DOS and Windows 3.0, and they are constantly changing and evolving. It’s only been about twelve years since Windows 95 was released, and the changes from 95 to Vista are extraordinary.
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Common roles of the Operating System
Role #1: Provide resourse
What is a resource? • Anything valuable (e.g., CPU, memory, disk) Advantages of standard library • Allow applications to reuse common facilities • Make different devices look the same • Provide higher-level abstractions Challenges • What are the correct abstractions? • How much of hardware should be exposed
Role #2: Resource coordinator
Advantages of resource coordinator • Virtualize resources so multiple users or applications can share • Protect applications from one another • Provide efficient and fair access to resources Challenges • What are the correct mechanisms? • What are the correct policies?
Operating System's Role is Changing
The changing began in the 1990s, as application developers moved to employ OS-neutral development frameworks like Java or open-source development platforms that afforded them more control over application interfaces. And if we have a virtualization layer that focuses exclusively on managing all the underlying hardware and can run any OS. The role of the OS in a virtual appliance becomes more about supporting applications. “In Windows and Linux, for example, the applications are coded to those APIs. Over time, there could be operating systems targeting different kinds of applications. Effectively if you look at reliability and security, you want to simplify, have an environment where can lop off everything not being used. When people start deploying OSs this way, you just want to have an OS that delivers what you need.
