The Operating System Architecture

Objectives
In this lesson, you will learn to:
Define operating system
Describe the functions of operating system
List the products in the Windows family
Describe the architecture of the Windows 2000 System
Describe the booting process of Windows 2000
Define Multi-user Systems
Describe the architecture of the Linux Operating System
Describe the features of the Linux Operating System

NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 1 of 43

The Operating System Architecture
What is an Operating System
A computer uses its software to store, process and retrieve
information.
A computer software can be divided into two types.
Application software
System software
Application software enables users to perform specific task
System software enables a computer to function.
The operating system provides a consistent environment for
other software to execute commands

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The Operating System Architecture
Functions Of Operating System
The various tasks that an operating system performs are:
Process Management
I/O Operations
File Management
Memory Management

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The Operating System Architecture
Evolution of Windows operating system
Microsoft has designed the Windows family to meet
computing needs ranging from stand-alone, through small
Local Area Network (LAN), to Wide Area Network (WAN).
The following summarizes the products available in
the two Windows families in the order of origin:
Windows 3.x Family
Windows 3.1
Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows Me
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The Operating System Architecture
Evolution of Windows operating system
Windows NT Family
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture
Windows 2000 is a modular operating system composed of
several simple modules:
Hardware Abstraction Layer
Kernel
Executive Services
Protected Subsystems
Environment Subsystems

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
System Service Applications Environment
Support Processes Subsystem
Processes
POSIX
User mode
Login Process Spooler Windows Explorer

Kernel Mode
Executive Services

Ntdll.dll

I/O Manager Object Configuration Security Plug and Power Process Local Virtual
Manager Manager Referenc Play Manager Manager Procedure Memory
(Registry) e Monitor Manager Call Manager
Facility
Device and File
System Drivers
Kernel

Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)

Hardware

Figure 1.2: Windows 2000 Architecture

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Hardware Abstraction Layer
Is a thin layer of software that hides the hardware differences
from the higher layers of the operating system
Makes the hardware dependencies transparent to the rest of
the operating system
Kernel
Is the heart of the operating system
Schedules activities for the CPU to perform and they are
called threads.

NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 8 of 43

The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Executive Services
Provides a set of common services that all subsystems can use
Each group of services is managed by one of the components
of the executive services
Object Manger
Power manager
Process Manager
I/O Manager

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Virtual Memory Manager
Local Procedure Call Facility
Cache Manager
Security Reference Monitor
Plug and Play Monitor
Device Driver Manager

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Object Manager
Provides rules for retention, naming and security of objects
Creates, manages, and deletes Executive objects
Is extensible; hence new objects can be defined as technology
grows

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Power Manager
Windows 2000 Server supports all of the latest standards
in power management including APM and ACPI support.
Network devices can be powered off when not in use and
dynamically reactivated via incoming packets or outgoing traffic
Windows 2000 Server has the potential to run for longer
periods of time on battery powered systems due to its ability to
conserve power when not in use and then be dynamically
reactivated via incoming network traffic

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Process Manager
Manages the creation and deletion of processes
Provides a standard set of services for creating and using
processes
Works in conjugation with the security model and the virtual
memory manager to provide interprocess protection
I/O Manager
Manages all the input and output for the operating system
Supports all file system drivers, hardware device drivers and
network drivers, and provides a heterogeneous environment for
them
NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 13 of 43
The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Virtual Memory Manager
Virtual memory is the term used to describe the technique
where the operating system can allocate more memory than
what is physically available
Virtual memory manager maps virtual addresses in the
processs address space to physical pages in the computers
memory
Hides the physical organization of memory from the processes

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)

NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 15 of 43

The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Local Procedure Call Facility
The executive system implements a message passing facility
called a Local Procedure Call (LPC)
Used to pass messages between processes running on a
single Windows 2000 system
Cache Manager
Handles caching for the entire I/O system
Dynamically changes the size of the cache according to the
amount of available RAM

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Security Reference Monitor
Is responsible for enforcing the access validation and audit-
eneration policy defined by the local security subsystem
Controls which objects have permissions to which resources

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Plug and Play Manager
Automatically indicates to the software (device drivers)
where to find various pieces of hardware (devices) such as
modems, network cards, sound cards, etc
Matches up physical devices with the software (device drivers)
that operates them and to establish channels of communication
between each physical device and its driver
Device Driver manager
Sends and receives load parameters and configuration data
from the Registry.

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The Operating System Architecture
Windows Architecture (Contd..)
Environment Subsystems
Windows 2000 runs applications for operating systems such as
MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows and POSIX. Windows 2000 supports
a variety of applications through the use of environment
subsystems

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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows
Each time the computer is switched on, it goes through a complex
set of steps before the user is permitted to interact:
Power-on self test (POST)
Initial startup process
Bootstrap loader process
Operating system selection Hardware detection
Hardware detection
Hardware configuration selection
Kernel loading
Operating system logon process
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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows (Contd..)
Power-On-Self-Test (POST)
Is a set of instructions stored in the ROM that checks each
functional area of the computer
Initial Startup Process
After the computer finishes the POST, the system BIOS
attempts to start an operating system.
The sequence that the BIOS follows depends on the BIOS
configuration

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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows (Contd..)
Bootstrap Loader process
Ntldr loads the operating system files from the boot partition.
Ntldr performs the following steps:
Sets the processor to run in 32-bit flat memory mode
Starts the NTFS file system or the file allocation table (FAT)
16 or 32 file system
Reads Boot.ini, which displays the operating selections on
the boot loader screen
Asks you to choose a hardware profile if you have one or
more hardware profiles on your computer
Loads and passes the information from Ntdetect.com
to Ntoskrnl.exe, starting the startup screen
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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows (Contd..)
Operating System selection
Boot.ini contains the list of available operating systems.
Each entry includes the path to the boot partition for the
operating system, the string to display in the boot loader
screen, and optional parameters
Hardware detection
Ntdetect.com detects the hardware, gathers a list of the
currently installed hardware components, and passes the
information to Ntldr

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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows (Contd..)
Selecting Hardware Configure
During the Ntdetect phase, if you have multiple hardware
configurations, the following information appears:
Hardware Profile/Configuration Recovery Menu

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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows (Contd..)
Loading and Initializing Kernel
Ntldr loads the kernel and the hardware abstraction layer (HAL)
into memory.
Ntldr creates the control set that it uses to initialize the
computer
The kernel initiates the Windows 2000 screen, and the Starting
Up progress bar is displayed.
When the status bar completes, Ntoskrnl prepares the network
information.

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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows (Contd..)
The kernel uses the information that was passed from the boot
loader to create the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE key
The kernel then creates the Clone control set, which is a copy
that points to the Current control set.

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The Operating System Architecture
Starting up the Windows (Contd..)
Loading on to the OS
The Windows subsystem automatically starts Winlogon.exe,
which starts the Local Security Administration.
The Begin Logon dialog box appears. Windows 2000 might still
be initializing network device drivers, but you can log on.

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The Operating System Architecture
Multi-User Systems
Are capable of running multiple processes concurrently and can
share hardware resources such as printers and disks.
Types Of Systems
Multi-User Systems
More than one user can work simultaneously on a multi-user
system

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The Operating System Architecture
Multi-User Systems (Contd..)
MultiUser Operating Systems
Linux, Unix, and Windows NT Terminal Server are examples
of multi-user operating systems
More than one user can connect to the system and work
concurrently at any point in time
Printer
Communication Lines

System Unit
-Processor
-Disk(s)
-Tape(s)
-Floppy Disk(s) Graphical or text Remote User Terminals
System Console Terminals

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The Operating System Architecture
The Linux Operating System
Is an open source operating system within the Unix family
Is open source software and is freely available
over the Internet

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The Operating System Architecture
The Linux Operating System (Contd..)
There are several distributors of Linux. All the distributors
use the Linux kernel.
Distributor Name Website
Red Hat http://www.redhat.com
Caldera http://www.caldera.com
Mandrake http://www.linux-mandrake.com
Debian http://www.debian.org
SuSE http://www.suse.com
Slackware http://www.slackware.com

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The Operating System Architecture
The Linux Operating System (Contd..)
The Linux Architecture
The Linux operating system consists of the following:
Kernel
Shell

Utilities and Application Programs

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The Operating System Architecture
The Linux Operating System (Contd..)
Features of the Linux Operating System:
Multi-programming
Time-Sharing
Multi-Tasking
Virtual-Memory

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The Operating System Architecture
The Linux Operating System (Contd..)
Services Provided by Linux distribution
Samba
CRON Scheduler
Web Server
Licensing

NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 34 of 43

The Operating System Architecture
The Linux Operating System (Contd..)
Shells Available in Linux
Bash Shell (bash)
Tcsh Shell (tcsh)
A Shell (ash)
Z Shell (zsh)

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The Operating System Architecture
Starting a Linux Session: Logging on
Connect to a computer running the Linux operating system from
any other computer using the telnet program
telnet <hostname or IP address>
The administrator assigns each user a HOME directory when a
new logon account is created. When you log on, you are taken
directly to your HOME directory

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The Operating System Architecture
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
The operating system acts as an interface between and user.
The various tasks that an operating system perform are:
Process Management
I/O Operations
File Management
Memory Management
Windows 2000 consists of the following modules :
Hardware Abstraction Layer
Kernel
NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 37 of 43
The Operating System Architecture
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
Executive Services
Protected Subsystems
Environment Subsystems
Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) makes the hardware
dependencies transparent to the rest of the operating system.
Kernel is the heart of the operating system. It schedules activities for
the CPU

NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 38 of 43

The Operating System Architecture
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
The Executive Services include:
Object Manger
Virtual Memory Manager
Power Manager
Process Manager
Local Procedure Call Facility
I/O Manager
Security Reference Monitor
Device Driver Manager
NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 39 of 43
The Operating System Architecture
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
Environmental Subsystems allows different types of applications to
run on the same graphical desktop.
Every time the computer is switched on, it goes through a complex
set of steps known as the start-up process.
The start-up process consists of:
Power-on self test (POST)
Initial startup process
Bootstrap loader process
Operating system selection (if the computer has a multiple-boot
configuration)
NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 40 of 43
The Operating System Architecture
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
Hardware detection
Hardware configuration selection (if you are using more than one
hardware profile)
Kernel loading
Operating system logon process
Some of the files necessary for booting Windows 2000 are Ntldr,
Boot.ini, Ntdetect.com and Ntoskrnl.exe
More than one user can work simultaneously on a multi- user
system. Linux is an example of a multi-user operating system

NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 41 of 43

The Operating System Architecture
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
The Linux operating system consists of kernel, shell, utilities, and
application programs.
Some of the commonly available shells in Linux along with their
executable files names are:
The Bash shell (bash)
The Tcsh shell (csh/tcsh)
The A shell (ash)
The Z shell(zsh)

NIIT Operating System Architecture /Lesson 1 /Slide 42 of 43

The Operating System Architecture
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
Features of the Linux operating system are:
Multi-programming
Time-sharing
Multi-tasking
Virtual memory
Services provided by Linux distribution are:
Samba
CRON scheduler
Web Server and Licensing
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