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An Introduction To Operating Systems: Amity School of Engineering & Technology

The document provides an introduction to operating systems. It defines an operating system as software that enables users and applications to interact with a computer's hardware and data. It describes the basic tasks of an operating system, including input/output management and file storage. It notes that operating systems provide generic services like processing, storage, input, and output that support a variety of applications in a standardized way. Examples of operating system services include program execution, I/O operations, and inter-process communication. The document also discusses user and system views of how operating systems manage resources and allocate them efficiently. Finally, it provides an overview of the UNIX operating system and some of its advantages like multitasking and multi-user support.

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Vidit Nigam
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61 views12 pages

An Introduction To Operating Systems: Amity School of Engineering & Technology

The document provides an introduction to operating systems. It defines an operating system as software that enables users and applications to interact with a computer's hardware and data. It describes the basic tasks of an operating system, including input/output management and file storage. It notes that operating systems provide generic services like processing, storage, input, and output that support a variety of applications in a standardized way. Examples of operating system services include program execution, I/O operations, and inter-process communication. The document also discusses user and system views of how operating systems manage resources and allocate them efficiently. Finally, it provides an overview of the UNIX operating system and some of its advantages like multitasking and multi-user support.

Uploaded by

Vidit Nigam
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Amity School of Engineering & Technology

An Introduction to
Operating Systems
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

Definition
 An Operating System, or OS,
is software that enables a
user and application software
to interact with a computer’s
hardware and the data and
other programs stored on the
computer.
 An OS performs basic tasks,
such as recognizing input
from the keyboard, sending
output to the display screen,
keeping track of files and
directories on the disk, and
controlling peripheral devices
such as printers.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology
Need for an OS:
• The primary need for the OS arises from the fact that
user needs to be provided with services and OS ought
to facilitate the provisioning of these services.
• The central part of a computer system is a processing
engine called CPU. A system should make it possible for
a user’s application to use the processing unit.
• A user application would need to store information. The
OS makes memory available to an application when
required.
• Similarly, user applications need use of input facility to
communicate with the application. This is often in the
form of a key board, or a mouse or even a joy stick (if
the application is a game for instance).
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

• The output usually provided by a video monitor or a printer as some times the
user may wish to generate an output in the form of a printed document.
Output may be available in some other forms. For example it may be a video
or an audio file.
Let us consider few applications.
• Document Design
• Accounting
• E-mail
• Image processing
• Games
We notice that each of the above application requires resources for
• Processing information
• Storage of Information
• Mechanism to inputting information
• Provision for outputting information
These service facilities are provided by an operating system regardless of the
nature of application.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

• The OS offers generic services to support all the


above operations. These operations in turn
facilitate the applications.
• To that extent an OS operation is application
neutral and service specific.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

Other Services
 Program Execution
OS provides an environment where the user can conveniently run
programs. The user does not have to worry about memory
allocation or CPU scheduling. 

 I/O Operations
Each program requires input and produces output. The OS hides
some of the details of the underlying hardware for such I/O. All the
user sees is that the I/O has been performed, without those details.  

 Communications
There are instances where processes need to communicate with
each other to exchange information. It may be between processes
running on the same computer or running on different computers.
The OS provides these services to application programs, making
inter-process communication possible, and relieving the user of
having to worry about how this accomplished.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

Application programs and OS


 Operating systems provide a software platform on top of which other
programs, called application programs, can run.

 The choice of operating system, therefore, determines to a great


extent the applications a user can run.

 For example, the DOS operating system contains commands such


as COPY and RENAME for copying files and changing the names of
files, respectively. The commands are accepted and executed by a
part of the operating system.

 Similarly, the UNIX operating system has commands like CP and


MV to copy and rename.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology
User and System View:
• From the user point of view the primary consideration is always the
convenience. It should be easy to use an application. In launching an
application, it helps to have an icon which gives a clue which application it
is. We have seen some helpful clues for launching a browser, e-mail or
even a document preparation application.
• In other words, the human computer interface which helps to identify an
application and its launch is very useful. This hides a lot of details of the
more elementary instructions that help in selecting the application.
Similarly, if we examine the programs that help us in using input devices
like a key board – all the complex details of character reading program are
hidden from the user. The same is true when we write a program. For
instance, when we use a programming language like C, a printf command
helps to generate the desired form of output. The following figure
essentially depicts the basic schema of the use of OS from a user stand
point.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

• when it comes to the view point of a system, the OS needs to


ensure that all the system users and applications get to use the
facilities that they need. Also, OS needs to ensure that system
resources are utilized efficiently. For instance, there may be many
service requests on a Web server. Each user request need to be
serviced.

• Similarly, there may be many programs residing in the main


memory. The system need to determine which programs are active
and which need to await some form of input or output. Those that
need to wait can be suspended temporarily from engaging the
processor. This strategy alone enhances the processor throughput.

• In other words, it is important for an operating system to have a


control policy and algorithm to allocate the system resources.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology
UNIX
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

 UNIX was one of the first operating systems


to be written, in 1971.

 Advantages of UNIX are…

 Multitasking – multiple programs can run at


one time.

 Multi-user – allows more than a single user


to work at any given time. This is
accomplished by sharing processing time
between each user.

 Safe – prevents one program from


accessing memory or storage space
allocated to another program, and enables
file protection, requiring users to have
permission to perform certain functions,
such as accessing a directory, file, or disk
drive.
Amity School of Engineering & Technology

 Thanks

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