Chapter 2 - Operating System Structures Flashcards
What does an operating system provide?
An operating system provides an environment for the execution of programs by providing services to users and programs.
What are the three primary approaches for interacting with an operating system?
- command interpreters
- graphical user interface
- touchscreen
What do system calls provide?
System calls provide an interface to the services made available by an operating system. Programmers use a system call’s application programming interface (API) for accessing system-call services.
What are the six major categories of system calls?
- process control
- file management
- device management
- information maintenance
- communications
- protection
What provides the system-call interface for UNIX and LINUX systems?
The standard C library
What does a linker do?
A linker combines several relocatable object modules into a single binary executable file.
What does a loader do?
A loader loads the executable file into memory, where it becomes eligible to run on an available CPU.
List some reasons why applications are operating-system specific.
There are several reasons why applications are operating-system specific. These include different binary formats for program executables, different instruction sets for different CPUs, and system calls that vary from one operating system to another.
What is a monolithic operating system?
A monolithic operating system has no structure; all functionality is provided in a single, static binary file that runs in a single address space. Although such systems are difficult to modify, their primary benefit is efficiency.
How is a layered operating system divided?
A layered operating system is divided into a number of discrete layers, where the bottom layer is the hardware interface and the highest layer is the user interface. Although layered software systems have had some success, this approach is generally not ideal for designing operating systems due to performance problems.
What does a boot loader do?
A boot loader loads an operating system into memory, performs initialization, and begins system execution.
How can the performance of an operating system be monitored?
The performance of an operating system can be monitored using either counters or tracing. Counters are a collection of system-wide or per process statistics, while tracing follows the execution of a program through the operating system.
