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Specialized Operating Systems Lets start from the history of operation systems. If we look through the history we will see that the history of OS developing can be presented in such logicality: the reason of appearing, the mainframe era, the era of minicomputers and the rise of Unix, time of 8 -bit home computers and game consoles and the personal computer era (Apple, DOS, etc) Years ago computers lacked any form of operating system. The users worked with the computers using his or her program and data, often on punched paper tape. They loaded the program into the machine, and the machine set to work, until the program stopped, or maybe more likely, crashed. Programs were usually debugged via a front panel using switches and lights. As Alan Turing said It was a master of this on the early Manchester Mark I machine.
Later machines started to use libraries of support code, which were linked to the user's program to assist in operations such as input and output. With time machines became more and more powerful, the time necessary for running a program decreases and the time to hand off the equipment increased greatly in comparison. There was a great need in a program which would be able count printed pages, punched cards, read cards, use disk storage, etc. Neal Stephenson wrote An operating system, or "monitor" as it was sometimes called, permitted jobs to become multi step with the monitor running several programs in sequence to effect the translation and subsequent run of the user's program. (In the Beginning... was the Command Line, 1999) With time passing became hard to define the precise description of OS. Nowadays, OS includes much second class software such as graphical user interface or various file viewers.
To accommodate this evolution of the meaning most of what was the original "operating system" is now called the "kernel", and OS has come to mean the complete package. (In the Beginning... was the Command Line, 1999) The era of mainframe OS started when IBM developed the System/ 360 series of machines, which used the same operating system, OS/ 360. Then was z/OS based on Unix kernel as well as a huge amount of new functions required by modern mission-critical applications running on the zSeries mainframes. The Unix OS appeared in AT&T Bell Laboratories. It was written in high language and that is why it was able to port it to another machine along with the architecture. This portability permitted it to become the choice for a second generation of minicomputers and the first generation of workstations.
The 8 -bit computers in faraway 1980 s used normal disk-loading operating system, such as CP/M or GEOS. But they also could work without one because almost all of them had a built-in BASIC interpreter on ROM which also served as a crude operating system, allowing minimal file management operations (such as deletion, copying, etc. ) (In the Beginning... was the Command Line, 1999) As for the game consoles I may say that videogame consoles and arcade coin operated machines during the 1970 s, 1980 s and on the beginning of 1990 s used a built-in BIOS. It was so until the PlayStation era, which developed a high range of sophistication requiring generic or custom-built OS for aiding in developing and expandability. And then with the development of microprocessors came the era of personal computer.
The inexpensiveness of computer made them available for the the small business and hobbyist, which in turn led to the widespread use of interchangeable hardware components using a common interconnection (such as the S- 100, SS- 50, Apple II, ISA, and PCI buses), and an increasing need for 'standard' operating systems to control them. (In the Beginning... was the Command Line, 1999) And now we have what we have. The operation system is software, which controls all kinds of software and hardware resources of computer system. There are many kinds of operation systems and they all have their similarities and differences in the strategies of job scheduling and memory management. Operating systems perform 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 disk drives and printers. One of the major roles of an operating system is to control processes.
For instance, each process or job requires CPU resources, which the operation system must allocate. The function of CPU is to execute program instruction and coordinate the activity of the other entire unit. In other words the CPU is the brain of computer but it can do nothing without proper operation system. Almost all widely used operating systems are multi-user systems. Such systems complicated the job of the OS because the majority of the OS are not dedicated for the multiplatform working space. For large systems, the operating system has even greater responsibilities and powers.
It is like a traffic cop it makes sure those different programs and users running at the same time do not interfere with each other. The operating system is also responsible for security, ensuring that unauthorized users do not access the system. Operating systems provide a software platform on top of which other programs, called application programs, can run. The application programs must be written to run on top of a particular operating system. Your choice of operating system, therefore, determines to a great extent the applications you can run. (OS, January 04, 2002) We can classify all the kinds of operating systems in such way: Multiprocessing OS: it supports running a program on more than one CPU Multithreading OS: this kinds of OS allows to run concurrently different parts of a single program. Multitasking OS: allows running more than one program at time Real time OS: this kind of operating systems responds to input instantly. (but general-purpose operating systems, such as DOS and UNIX, are not real-time) Multi-user OS: allows more than one user to run programs at the same time.
Some operating systems such as Unix permit hundreds or even thousands of concurrent users. Multi-users operation systems are the most popular and widely used. And of course Unix is the best OS for multi-users systems. All mainframes and minicomputers are multi-user systems, but most personal computers and workstations are not.
I want to say few words about computers, which use multi-user OS for better understanding of purposes of operating systems and their properties. Mainframes use multi-user systems. It is understandable because it is a very large and expensive computer capable of supporting hundreds, or even thousands, of users simultaneously. According to OS In the hierarchy that starts with a simple microprocessor (in watches, for example) at the bottom and moves to supercomputers at the top, mainframes are just below supercomputers.
In some ways, mainframes are more powerful than supercomputers because they support more simultaneous programs. But supercomputers also have their advantages. They can execute a single program faster than a mainframe. The distinction between small mainframes and minicomputers is vague, depending really on how the manufacturer wants to market its machines. Minicomputers are multiprocessing systems capable of supporting from 4 to about 200 users simultaneously. In size and power they lie somewhere between workstations and mainframes.
In the past years the distinction between large minicomputers and small mainframes has blurred as well as has blurred the distinction between small minicomputers and workstations. Now, lets try to imagine a computer system which has thousand users working simultaneously. It is necessary to use a stable operating system with wide range of running applications. Unix and Linux are the most widely used OS when the multi-using is required. Unix was written mostly on C and that gives certain flexibility to it. This natural portability combined with its low price made it a popular choice among universities. (It was inexpensive because antitrust regulations prohibited Bell Labs from marketing it as a full-scale product. ) Unix gained its popularity due to its portability, flexibility, and power.
Linux is a multitasking and multi-user OS which belongs to the Unix family OS and is compatible with the Intel 80386, 80486 and Pentium. Linux supports wide range of program packages (from the TeX to X Windows), GNU C/C++ compilers and TCP/IP protocols. Linux can change an ordinary home PC in professional workstation. It is very compatible with IEEE POSIX. 1, System V BSD. The other specific feature of Linux OS is the work monitoring under the POSIX standard (which is also used by csh bash covers), pseudo terminals (pty), supporting of national and standard keyboards. The kernel of the Linux Os is able to emulate 387 -FPU commands that are why systems without coprocessors can fulfill programs with floating point.
Linux supports different types of files but some file systems such as ext 2 fs was created especially for Linux. It also supports such file systems as Minix- 1 XENIX, MS-DOS file system and ISO 9660 CD-ROM. Linux provides the full set of networks TCP/IP protocols. It supports the whole TCP/IP service spectrum including FTP, telnet, NNTP and SMTP. The multitasking is somewhere similar to multi-using. It is an ability to execute more than one task at the same time or in other words to run different programs simultaneously.
Sometimes people mix up the terms multitasking and multiprocessing but multiprocessing is a process of running more than one CPU at once. In multitasking, only one CPU is involved, but it switches from one program to another so quickly that it gives the appearance of executing all of the programs at the same time. There are two basic types of multitasking: preemptive and cooperative. In preemptive multitasking, the operating system parcels out CPU time slices to each program.
In cooperative multitasking, each program can control the CPU for as long as it needs it. If a program is not using the CPU, however, it can allow another program to use it temporarily. OS/ 2, Windows 95, Windows NT, the Amiga operating system and UNIX use preemptive multitasking, whereas Microsoft Windows 3. x and the Multi Finder (for Macintosh computers) use cooperative multitasking.
As for the real time OS it is another kind of OS, which can be described as an operation within a larger dynamic system (if the combined reaction- and operation-time of a task is shorter than the maximum delay that...
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