Operating Systems Chapter 1

Graphical User Interface

An operating system characteristic that utilizes graphics and the point-and-click technology of the mouse and cursor, making the OS much more user friendly

RIM

Blackberry OS introduced in 2002

mainframes

Very large computers that handle the requests of hundreds or thousands of users simultaneously

UNIX

"An operating system originally conceived in 1969 by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie of AT&T's Bell Labs. In 1974, the UNIX code was rewritten in the standard programming language C. Today there are various commercial versions of UNIX."

EEPROM

(Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) A type of non-volatile storage typically used in personal computers to store boot and BIOS data

architecture

(computer science) the structure and organization of a computer's hardware or system software

cores

(or processor cores) Today's processor chips come with multiple processors called ____.

Windows NT (New Technology)

**high-end operating system to be used on very powerful computer

Memory management unit

..., A hardware device responsible for handling memory access requested by the main processor

Interrupt

..., A signal that informs the operating system that an event that has occurred and is need of immediate attention. (signals created by input and output devices) ( signal sent to stop CPU from what it is doing so that the Interrupt Handlers can take care of it)

Device driver

..., A software program that provides the instructions your computer needs to communicate with a device, such as a scanner.

Virtual memory

..., Memory management programming which make the limited RAM of the physical machine appear to be more by using a portion of the hard drive

PCIe

..., Peripheral component interconnect express

I/O port space

..., Set of all I/O ports.

Plug and play

..., The capability of windows based pc operating systems to detect new,compatible devices

Direct Media Interface (DMI)

..., The connection between the CPU and newer chipsets instead of the front side bus.

ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)

..., The original PC bus type, developed in the early 1980s to support an 8-bit and later a 16-bit data path and a 4.77-MHz clock speed.

Context switch

..., When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the state of the old process and load the saved state for the new process via a context switch.

Solid State Disk

..., a high-capacity storage device that contains high-speed random access memory

Interrupt vector

..., a location in each I/O class containing the address of the interrupt service procedure

Busy waiting

..., a method by which processes, waiting for an event to occur, continuously test to see if the condition has changed and remain in unproductive, resource-consuming wait loops.

AT Attachment

..., a standard for disk drive interface that integrates the controller into the disk drive. Often referred to as IDE or EIDE.

USB (Universal Serial Bus

..., an external bus standard that supports high data transfer rates, multiple-device support, hot-swapping, and power.

BIOS (Basic input output system

..., contains low level I/O software, including procedures to read the keyboard, write to the screen, and do disk I/O among other things

Small Computer System Interface SCSI

..., interface that uses parallel communication technology to achieve high data-transfer rates

direct memory access (DMA)

..., memory access that does not involve toe microprocessor and is frequently used for data transfer directly between memory and peripheral devices, such as a disk drive

Serial bus structure

...sends all bits in a message through a single connection.

Parallel bus structure

...you send each word of data over multiple wires.

network operating system

A Network operating system, also called a network OS or NOS, organizes, controls and coordinates the administration, file management, printer management and security activities on a local area network., Software that controls the operations of a network; controls the computer systems and peripherals, and the communication between them.

Berkeley Software Distribution

A UNIX distribution that originated at the University of California at Berkeley. The BSD suffix differentiates these distributions from AT&T distributions. No longer being developed at Berkeley, the last public release of BSD UNIX was version 4.4.

System V

A Unix distribution developed by AT&T

pipeline

A ___ is the series of steps that the CPU uses to process a command.

service packs

A _________ is a cumulative set of all updates for a particular operating system version, usually going back to its original release and are extensively tested.

FreeBSD

A free, open-source, Unix-like operating system based on Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix. It is the most popular among the BSD-based operating systems, with an installed base of more than 75%.

Linux

A freely distributable implementation of a UNIX-type of system. Finnish computer scientist Linus Torvalds originally developed it.

Gnome and KDE

A graphical user interface and set of computer desktop applications for users of the Linux computer operating system. It's intended to make a Linux operating system easy to use for non-programmers and generally corresponds to the Windows desktop interface and its most common set of applications.

multiplexing

A process where multiple digital data streams are combined into one signal.

Shell

A program layer that stands between the user and the operating system.

CP/M (Control Programming for Microcomputers)

Gary Kildall was a computer pioneer who developed one of the very first desktop operating systems called...

program counter

A register that holds the address of the next instruction to be fetched in the fetch execute cycle.

stack pointer

A register that points to the top of the current stack in memory. The stack contains one frame for each procedure that has been entered but not yet executed.

superscalar

A technique that enables a processor to execute more than one instruction in a single clock cycle is called _____.

multithreading

A technology that allows multiple parts or threads from a program to run simultaneously.

Serial ATA

A type of hard drive that uses much thinner cables, and can transfer data more quickly, than IDE drives. one end plugs into a port on the motherboard, and the other into the back of a storage device like a hard drive., Often abbreviated SATA or S-ATA, an evolution of the Parallel ATA physical storage interface. Serial ATA is a serial link -- a single cable with a minimum of four wires creates a point-to-point connection between devices.

L1 Cache (Level 1)

A type of memory cache that is built directly into the processor chip, with a capacity of 8 KB to 16 KB. Most chips have a second L1 Cache for very heavily used data words.

L2 Cache

A type of memory cache that is slightly slower than L1 cache, but has a much larger capacity, ranging from 64 KB to 16 MB.

flash memory

A type of nonvolatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and rewritten repeatedly.

operating System

Also known as an "OS," this is the software that communicates with computer hardware on the most basic level. Without an operating system, no software programs can run.

Track

An annular region on a disk

system call

An instruction that interrupts the program being executed and requests a service from the operating system.

Random Access Memory (RAM)

Holds a software program and small amounts of data for processing (volatile- lose if computer is turned off)

Program Status Word

It is a register or set of registers that contains condition codes, execution mode, and other status information that reflects the state of a process.

cache lines

Main memories and caches are divided up into fixed-size blocks. When talking about these blocks inside the cache, they are commonly reffered to as X.

I/O Input

Means of transferring data between user & machine

off line

Not connected to a remote computer system or a network.

Kernel Mode

OS runs in kernel mode, and has complete access to all the hardware and it can execute any instruction. It is the main component of most OS and forms the bridge between applications and actual data processing. It manages the system's resources and makes them available to application processes through communication mechanisms and system calls.

posix

POSIX is an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines the application programming interface (API), along with command line shells and utility interfaces, for software compatibility with variants of Unix and other operating systems.

PDA

Personal Digital Assistant (i.e. smart phone)

hyperthreading

Provides quicker processing of information by enabling a new set of instructions to start executing before the previous set has finished. (Like the use of multiple cores on a CPU chip for PC's)

user friendly

Software or hardware designed so that people who don't have a lot of computer experience can use the system without becoming confused or frustrated. This phrase can be used for non IT contexts eg the phone, dishwasher etc is very user friendly

Digital Rights Management

Software which restricts the actions a user can perform with a file, such as copying or printing.

timesharing

Technique by which mainframe computers communicate with several users simultaneously

Mac OS X

The latest version of the Macintosh operating system.

X Windows System (X11)

This GUI shell standard was developed in 1984 at MIT. This system handles the basic windows management, allowing users to create, delete, move, and resize windows using a mouse.

CTSS

Timesharing operating system developed by MIT in the 1960's

Symbian

Which is an example of a smartphone operating system?

Multics

_____ was the first operating system to integrate security as its core functions.

spooling

a device whereby the output from a computer is placed in storage queues to await tranmission to a device which moves slower than the computer output (i.e. the storage of data to a file until it can be read by a printer with more limited memory capacity)

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

a processor with literally thousands of tiny cores. They are very good for many small computations done in parallel, like rendering polygons in graphics applications. They are not so good at serial tasks.

Read Only Memory (ROM)

a set of memory chips located ont he motherboard that stores data and instructions that cannot be changed or erased; it holds all the instructions the computer needs to start up. also known as nonvolatile memory

Minix

a small educational version of UNIX developed by Andrew Tannenbaum for the Intel x86 platform.

Cache hit

a successful read of the database buffer cache for data requested by a user (versus a cache miss, which requires copying of the requested data from the data block on the data file into the buffer cache)

multiprogramming

a technique that allows a single processor to process several programs residing simultaneously in main memory and interleaving their execution by overlapping I/O requests with CPU requests

Integrated circuits

a thin slice of silicon crystal containing microscopic circuit elements, such as transistors, wires capacitors and resistors also called chips computer chips and microchips

batch system

a type of system developed for the earliest computers that used punched cards or tape for input, which were entered in a "batch"

Cylinder

all the tracks for a given arm position form a____________.

distributed operating system

appears like a uniprocessor system when it is composed of multiple processors.

Disk Driver

devices that load a program or data stored on a disk into the computer

Large Scale Integration

in the fourth generation of computers engineers were able to fit more circuits on a chip. this process is called ______

x86

intel named it's first processors ending with 86 so that's how the architecture got it's name for 32bit; the x64 tech people just copied the format and put in 64 (the # of bits in this case)

iPhone

is a Smartphone developed by Apple

Windows ME (Millennium Edition)

is an upgrade to the Windows 98 os that has features specifically for the home user.

User Mode

name given to indicate that processes are not granted privileged access to the processor. Therefore, certain instructions are not allowed and system memory isn't accessible. Contrasts with the less restrictive kernel mode.

os/360

operating systems for large computers

job

program or set of programs

microcomputers

refers to desktop and personal computers

MS - DOS

short for Microsoft Disk Operating System, an operating that was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems

x86-32 and x86-64

the number of bits in the processor

cloud computing

use of web services to perform functions that were traditionally performed with software on an individual computer; i.e. Flickr, Google Docs, etc.

Disk Operating System

what does DOS stand for