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What is an os?

• Programs with special privileges on the hardware that let them run and
manage other programs.
• First program to run when a computer is turned on.
• All subsequent programs are started by the OS.
• Started in 1950s.
• First they were made to manage the manual task of loading programs by
hand.
• Batch programming began.
- When one task ended, next was in line automatically. There was
no need for humans to run after bring the next code.
• When systems were less costly, software sharing began.
• So hardware interfacing became a problem. This became a tough task
for programmers.
• So OS began to act as an interface between software and hardware
peripherals – device drivers.

• First supercomputer – ATLAS –university of Manchester -1962

• it provided scheduling – which allowed multitasking
• now each program was allotted its own block of memory
- But memory was not allocated sequentially, it was usually
scattered all over the block. this becomes very confusing for
programmers
• Here virtual memory came to rescue. A new level of abstraction.
Address always APPEARS to start from 0. Virtual to physical memory
mapping is managed by OS.
• Memory protection is also provided.
• When computers became cheaper, OS had to handle multiple users. Time
sharing was developed
• First time sharing OS – multics -1969 –multiplexed information and
computing service
• Used a lot of memory
• So Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed UNIX.
• separated OS into 2 parts
- First – core functionality – memory management, multitasking,
dealing with I/O –kernel
- Second – programs and applications.
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• By 1990s MS DOS came to being – just 160kB

• lacked multitasking and memory protection
• Crashes more frequent.

Why do we need it?

A human running around putting programs into readers was a very slow process.

So we needed computers to compute themselves.

Life without OS

- Earliest computers didn’t have OS.

- They were huge machines
- They completed one task at a time. For this, they did not need any OS
- They required users to physically connect and disconnect wires from a plug
board to retrieve computations.

How can computer do calculation without OS?

The users write code that tells computers what exactly to do.

Difference b/w different versions of windows

1. MS DOS – very simple. Command based

2. Windows 1.0 -2.0 85-92 – allowed point and click to access
• Desktop icons, keyboard shortcuts, graphics
3. Windows 3.0 – 3.1 90-94 – better icons, performance, advanced graphics – 16
colors
• Included program manager, file manager, print manager, games
4. Windows 95 – a number of internal improvements
• Supports 32 bit applications
• Longer file names
• Plug and play feature – ability to automatically detect and configure
installed hardware
5. Windows 98 – provides active desktop feature
• Integrates web browser internet explorer
6. Windows 2000 - os for business desktop and laptop systems
7. Windows XP – redesigned look and feel
• Connect to wireless networks
• Utilizes 802.11x wireless security standard
8. Windows Vista – advancement in reliability, security, performance
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• Detect hardware problems

• Security features, faster start-up time, low power consumption
9. Windows 7 –improved performance and start up time, improved security
10. Windows 8 – completely redesigned os
• Built for touch screen use in mind
• Instant –on capabilities.
11. Windows 10 – fast start up and resume
• Built in security
• Return of start menu

How is windows different from Linux

1. Linux is open source. Windows is commercial

2. Linux has command line.
3. Linux has centralized application installation. Windows is non-centralized.
4. Linux is flexible. Windows is rigid.

How is UNIX different from Linux

1. UNIX source code is not easily available. Linux source code open source.
2. UNIX is not portable, whereas Linux is.
3. Linux can be installed on home based PCs. UNIX installation is comparatively
tricky.
4. Unix is used in server systems, high end computers.

Semaphore

Semaphore is a variable used to solve critical section problem

- Achieves process synchronization

- Maintains a count between 0 and a specified max value.
- The count is decremented each time a thread completes a wait for the
semaphore object
- Count is incremented when the thread releases semaphore.
- Useful in controlling a shared resource that can support a limited number of
users.
- Semaphores are used for signaling between threads.

Mutex

Mutex provides mutual exclusion.

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- Usually used for concurrency protection of resources

- When a mutex is taken, the thread owns the mutex and the same thread must
later release the mutex back to release the resource.

** semaphore vs mutex

- Consider the producer consumer problem. Suppose buffer is of size 4096 B.

- A producer thread collects the data and writes it to the buffer. A consumer
thread processes the collected data from the buffer.
- Objective is, both the threads should not run at the same time.
- A mutex provides mutual exclusion; either producer or consumer can have the
key (mutex) and proceed with their work.
- As long as the buffer is filled by producer, the consumer needs to wait, and
vice versa.

- At any point of time, only one thread can work with the entire buffer. The
concept can be generalized using semaphore.
- A semaphore is a generalized mutex.
- In lieu of single buffer, we can split the 4 KB buffer into four 1 KB buffers
(identical resources).
- A semaphore can be associated with these four buffers. The consumer and
producer can work on different buffers at the same time.

Real life producer/consumer

- Web service receives http requests for data, places request on a queue. Worker
thread pulls the work item from queue and performs the work.
- Printing of documents

Process

• An instance of program in execution.

• E.g. web browser is a process
• Has 3 states – running, ready, waiting

Thread

• A single sequence stream within a process

• Lightweight processes
• Improve parallelism
• E.g. multiple tabs are different threads. Ms word uses one thread to edit
document other to perform spell check etc.
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• Threads have their own PC, register and stack

• Threads share code section, data section and os resources

Why thread

• Threads can share data :D no need of IPC

• Can take advantage of multi processors
• Only need a stack and registers – cheap to create
• No need of new address space, code
• Faster context switching

 No protection between threads.

** Any program which does more than one task at a time should use thread

** Any sequential task that cannot be made parallel does not need threads.

Deadlock

• A situation where 2 or more processes wait for each other to finish but none of
them ever finishes.
• When 2 processes hold some resource and wait for resource held by other
1. 4 conditions – mutual exclusion – resource cannot be shared.
2. Hold and wait – process holding one resource and waiting for some other
resource
3. No preemption
4. Circular wait

Deadlock prevention vs deadlock avoidance

- Prevention- imposes restrictions on programs to prevent the possibility of

deadlock
- Avoidance – check resource requests and availability at run time to avoid
deadlock

Prevent - stop avert | avoid – dodge duck get around circumvent

Virtual Memory

- Creates an illusion that each user has contiguous address space

- Uses disk space to extend the RAM
- Process does not care whether memory is from RAM or disk
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Thrashing

When system spends more time processing page faults than executing transactions

Belady anomaly

When increasing number of page frames result in increase in number of page faults