K42: lessons for the OS community

2012

Computers are a very important part of our lives and the major reason why they have been such a success is because of the excellent graphical operating systems that run on these powerful machines. As the computer hardware is becoming more and more powerful, it is also vital to keep the software updated in order to utilize the hardware of the system efficiently and make it faster and smarter. This paper highlights some core issues that if dealt with in the operating system level would make use of the full potential of the computer hardware and provide an excellent user experience.

2010

Operating Systems complexity is increasing. Looking at UNIX evolution, several trends are pulling it away from its roots. As more functionality is continually demanded, it is unavoidable that future versions should be more complex. Unfortunately, a by-product of this increasing complexity is the gradual undermining of UNIX original benefits: simplicity and portability. Instead of evolving towards more portability, new releases require increasing efforts to implement on new platforms, particularly when they are built around emerging hardware architectures that UNIX was not initially designed to support. Once a port has been done, maintainability is becoming a major issue. New releases are difficult to integrate in a system in which numerous adaptations and extensions have been made. It often requires almost a complete new port. Simplicity is required, not in the number of functions performed but in the architecture and the concepts which are at the foundation of the system construction.

Communications of the ACM, 1976

The main features of a general purpose multiaccess operating system developed for the CDC 6400 at Berkeley are presented, and its good and bad points are discussed as they appear in retrospect. Distinctive features of the design were the use of capabilities for protection, and the organization of the system into a sequence of layers, each building on the facilities provided by earlier ones and protecting itself from the malfunctions of later ones. There were serious problems in maintaining the protection between layers when levels were added to the memory hierarchy; these problems are discussed and a new solution is described.

Over the past several years, a number of trends affecting operating system design are witnessed and foremost among them is a move towards modularity. Operating systems such as Microsofts Windows, IBMs OS/2, C-DACs PARAS and others are splintered into discrete components, each having a small, well defined interface, and each communicating with others via inter-task message interface. The lowest level is the microkernel, which provides only essential OS services, such as context switching. Windows NT, for example, also includes a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) beneath its microkernel which enables the rest of the OS to perform irrespective of the processor underneath. This high level of OS portability is a primary driving force behind the modular, microkernel-based push.

Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science, 2021

Various operating systems (OS) with numerous functions and features have appeared over time. As a result, they know how each OS has been implemented guides users' decisions on configuring the OS on their machines. Consequently, a comparative study of different operating systems is needed to provide specifics on the same and variance in novel types of OS to address their flaws. This paper's center of attention is the visual operating system based on the OS features and their limitations and strengths by contrasting iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. Linux, Android, and Windows 10 are more stable, more compatible, and more reliable operating systems. Linux, Android, and Windows are popular enough to become user-friendly, unlike other OSs, and make more application programs. The firewalls in Mac OS X and Windows 10 are built-in. The most popular platforms are Android and Windows, specifically the novelist versions. It is because they are low-cost, dependable, compatible, safe, and easy to use. Furthermore, modern developments in issues resulting from the advent of emerging technology and the growth of the cell phone introduced many features such as high-speed processors, massive memory, multitasking, high-resolution displays, functional telecommunication hardware, and so on. This review thesis is presented through two distinct perspectives: detailing several concerns related to the types of kernels and merits used and evaluating how novel technologies are evaluated, and assessing underperformance.

2005

Contemporary software systems are beset by problems that create challenges and opportunities for broad new OS research. To illustrate, we describe five areas where broad OS research could significantly improve the current user experience. These areas are dependability, security, system configuration, system extension, and multi-processor programming. In each area we explore how contemporary systems fall short. Where we have thought of possible solutions, we offer directions for future research. To prove our point that opportunities for new OS research exist, we describe Singularity, a research project at Microsoft Research. Singularity is a new operating system designed to explore solutions to four of the challenges we have identified. Singularity incorporates three specific design decisions in order to increase system dependability and improve system security, configuration, and extension. These design decisions include the adoption of an abstract instruction set as part of the system binary interface, a unified extension architecture for both the OS and applications, and a firstclass application abstraction.

This document contains Principles of Operating Systems Few questions and answers for professional grad students.

2019

This paper presents a comparative survey of three well known operating systems which are Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. The basic criteria for studying them are mostly focusing on the fundamental memory and file management, architecture, security, versatility and other topics. These topics are being compared in this paper. This research study gives us an overview of the main topics and on the various similarities and differences in the basic use of operating systems. Every operating system has its own set of differences in the composition and structure of the operating system and this study focuses on the underlying strengths and weaknesses of each operating system.

International Journal

Abstract: Operating system researches traditionally consist of adding new functions to the operating system in other words inventing and evaluating new methods for performing functions. Operating systems are the single most complex piece of software in a computer ...