Operating System in Digital Machines - Assignment Example

Operating System Faculty Q1. What role(s) do operating systems perform in digital machines? Today various typesof digital machines are available such as mobile, computer, PDA and many other devices. All of these digital machines use some form of operating systems. Without the use of operating systems it was not possible to run (use) this machines. Now what is operating system? It is not possible to define operating system precisely. It can be said as everything in systems that is not an application or hardware. Or it is termed as software that converts hardware into a useful form for applications. In general, an operating system (OS) is a computer program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. At the foundation of all system software, the operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking, and managing files. It also may provide a graphical user interface for higher level functions. For larger systems, an operating system has greater responsibilities and powers. In that case it behaves like a traffic cop; operating system makes sure that different programs and users running at the same time do not interface with each other. An operating system is also responsible for security, ensuring that unauthorized users do not access the system. Operating systems typically have four major components: process management, Input/Output (I/O) device management, memory management, and file management. Various services performed by the operating systems in any computer (digital machine) are ; process management, memory ,management, disk and file systems, networking, security (internal and external), graphical user interfaces and device drivers. Basically operating systems performed two types of roles in a digital machine; provide standard library (abstract resources of computer system) and resource coordinator (manager). The first things come here what is resource; it is anything that is valuable to system such as CPU, memory, disk, etc. The advantages of standard library are; allow applications to reuse common facilities; make different devices look the same; and provide higher level abstraction. As a resource coordinator operating system provide following advantages; Virtualizes resources so multiple users or applications can share, Protect applications from one another and Provide efficient and fair access to resources. Below is the roles of operating system is discussed as an extended machine and a resource manager. The Operating System as an Extended Machine: Operating system is a program that hides the truth about the hardware from the programmer and presents a nice, simple view of named files that can be read and written. The operating system shields the programmer from the disk hardware and presents a simple file-oriented interface; Operating system also conceals a lot of unpleasant business concerning interrupts, timers, memory management, and other low-level features. In each case, the abstraction offered by the operating system is simpler and easier to use than that offered by the underlying hardware. From this point of view, the function of the operating system is to present the user with the equivalent of an extended machine or virtual machine that is easier to program than the underlying hardware. The Operating System as a Resource Manager: Operating system in any computer works as a resource manager. The operating system primarily provides its users with a convenient interface; it is a top-down view. An alternative, bottom-up view describes operating system as; it is there to manage all the pieces of a complex system. These days modern computers consist of processors, memories, timers, disks, mice, network interfaces, printers, and a wide variety of other devices. Now this point of view, the job of the operating system is to provide for an orderly and controlled allocation of the processors, memories, and input/output devices among the various programs competing for them. Q2. Identify and describe the features in Vista which are improvements on windows XP Professional? Windows Vista or codename longhorn is the latest release from Microsoft Corporation. this latest release of Microsoft Windows, a line of graphical operating systems used on personal computers, home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. Prior to Windows Vista announcement on July 22, 2005, it was known as "Codename Longhorn". On November 8, 2006, Windows Vista development was completed and is now in the release to manufacturing stage. Windows Vista contains hundreds of new features and up-gradation over its previous release Windows XP. Some of them are an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Windows Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology. In Windows Vista for developers version 3.0 of the .NET Framework is introduced (earlier it was version 2.0), which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write high-quality applications than with the traditional Windows API. It is not possible to describe in details all the new and improved feature of Windows Vista, some of the new and improved features are written bellows: Windows Aero: A new hardware-based graphical user interface is incorporated in Windows Vista. Windows Shell: The new Windows shell is significantly different from Windows XP, offering a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities. Windows Sidebar: A transparent panel anchored to the side of the screen where a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose. Windows Internet Explorer 7: IE7 has a new user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing, Page Zoom, Quick Tabs, a number of new security protection features, and improved web standards support. Windows Media Player 11: it is major revamp of Microsofts program for playing and organizing music and video. Backup and Restore Center: Windows Vista includes a backup and restore application which gives users ability to schedule periodic backups of files on their computer along with recovery from previous backups. Windows Mail: It is a replacement for Outlook Express and includes a completely replaced mail store which improves stability, and enables real-time search. It has also incorporated a new junk mail filtering Windows Calendar: It is a new calendar and task application. Windows Photo Gallery: It is a photo and movie library management application. It can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual items, adjust colors and exposure, create and display slideshows, and burn slideshows to DVD. Windows DVD Maker: It is a companion program to Windows Movie Maker that provides the ability to create video DVDs based on a users content. Windows Meeting Space: It is the replacement for NetMeeting in Windows XP. With the use of it, users can share applications or their entire Desktop with other users on the local network, or over the Internet using peer-to-peer technology. Windows Media Center: It was previously exclusively bundled as a separate version of Windows XP, known as Windows XP Media Center Edition. It will be incorporated into the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista. Games: Every game included with Windows has been rewritten to take advantage of Windows Vistas new graphics capabilities. New games include Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans and Purble Place. Previous Versions automatically creates backup copies of files and folders, with daily frequency. The Windows Mobility Center: it is a new control panel that centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing Windows Update: Software and security updates have been simplified; now operating solely via a control panel instead of as a web application. Parental controls: Allows administrators to control which websites, programs, and games each standard user can use and install. Windows Side Show: It enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or on supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display Device gadgets while the computer is on or off. Speech Recognition: It is fully integrated into Windows Vista. It is an improved version of Microsoft Speech Recognition currently working under Office 2003, with a better interface, a rich and flexible set of commands, and an extensive command-and-control capability to activate the computer by voice. In above paragraph some of the improved and new features, whish is incorporated in Windows Vista is discussed. It is not possible to include the entire updated and new feature because it counts hundreds of new and improved features over previous release of Microsoft Corporations Windows XP. Q3. What are the main issues relating to the system integration of Vista into current Windows based systems? The main issues relating to the system integration of vista into current windows based systems are discussed bellow: Images Are Bigger in Windows Vista: In case of earlier Windows operating systems the images of the operating systems was easily fit on a single CD having capacity of 700 MB. Now in case of Windows Vista the images size is approximately more than 2 GB. And this can not be fit in a single CD; it can be only fit in as DVD images in a DVD. One more thing is that after deployment the size is greater than 5 GB. And if other software’s and drivers installed than it will be added on in the size. One possible solution is to use USB keys (Sticks) for deploying Windows Vista, since it can be make bootable key as long as the computer supports it. Now these days’ memory sticks are available up to size of 4 GB. Enhanced Security: There are no of security enhancements in Windows Vista which will impact on deployment. One of the examples is configuring Windows Vista to support low-rights for the users. Second big change is that even non-administrators can load drivers. And third important difference is in Internet Explorer (IE7) which can automatically install ActiveX Controls using elevated user rights. Firewall is also enhanced. And one more important feature BitLocker full-volume encryption allows the entire Windows Vista operating System volume to be encrypted. Componentized Operating System: Security updates, language packs, and service packs are simply components. Tools such as Package Manager (PKGMGR) can be used to apply these to Windows Vista. Also all Figure 1 Windows System Image Manager (Click the image for a smaller view) servicing can be performed offline or online. In Windows Vista operating system drivers are also treated as components and can be added and removed easily online or offline offline. Now the text mode installation as compared to previous releases of Windows is no more. Boot.ini file is no more in Windows Vista. A new boot loader, bootmgr, reads boot configuration data from a special file named BCD. A brand new tool called bcdedit.exe is used to maintain the contents of the BCD. Windows PE (new version) is a key part of the deployment process which was released with the Windows Vista. Even the standard DVD-based installation of Windows Vista uses Windows PE 2.0, and most organizations will be using it as part of their deployment processes. New tools are created to support the Windows Imaging (WIM) file format. Unlike many other image formats, WIM images are file-based, enabling them to be applied to an existing partition non-destructively. This has great advantages in deployment processes, since user state can be saved locally instead of on a network server, eliminating what is frequently the largest source of network traffic during a deployment. Windows Vista operating system is language is language neutral. One or more language packs are added to this language-neutral core to create the image that is deployed. Servicing is also language neutral so only one security update is needed for all languages. In Windows Vista, as compared to Windows XP and other previous release of Windows, where configuration information was stored in various text files. These files have been replaced with an XML file. The Unattend.txt file is replaced by Unattend.xml. Text mode installation is no more in Windows Vista. HAL Complication is No more in Windows Vista. Different hardware abstraction layers meant for the multiple images to be maintained in earlier releases. In windows Vista these technical restrictions are no more and the operating system is able to detect which HAL is required and automatically install it. Q1. Describe UNIX with reference to one of the following flavors; Apple OS X Tiger, BSD or Solaris. UNIX is a computer operating system. It is originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs. The group were consists of Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. Todays UNIX computer operating systems are split into various branches which were developed over time by AT&T along with various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations. Some UNIX based operating systems are Apple computer OS, BSD and Sun Microsystems Solaris. UNIX Operating System: The UNIX operating system is made up of three parts mainly; the kernel, the shell and the programs. Each terms of UNIX are defined below. Kernel: The kernel of UNIX is the hub of the operating system. The kernel of the UNIX Operating system allocates time and memory to programs. And also the kernel handles the file-store and communications in response to system calls. Shell: The shell of a UNIX operating system acts as an interface between the user and the kernel. When a user logs in UNIX operating system the login program of the operating system checks the username and password, and after matching it, starts another program called the shell. The shell is a command line interpreter (CLI) and interprets the commands that user types and arranges them to be carried out in UNIX operating system. The commands are themselves a program in a UNIX operating system. The user can customize the shell according to his/her requirements and can use different shell on the same machine in which UNIX operating systems is installed. For example staff and students of a college have "tcsh shell by default. Files and Processes: In UNIX environment everything is termed as file or process for the systems. A process is an executing program identified by a unique process identifier (PID). And a file is a collection of data. Both files and process are created by users using text editors, running compilers etc. Solaris: The latest release of Solaris operating systems from Sun Microsystems is Solaris 10. It is a distributed computing environment and includes the SunOS 5.10 operating system along with additional features: Common Desktop Environment, GNOME, Java tools. The kernel of Solaris 10 has received significant enhancement to support multiprocessor CPUs, multithreaded processes, kernel-level threads, and dynamic loading of device drivers and other kernel modules. Solaris 10 is based on SVR4 but contains additional BSD/SunOS features. In Solaris 10 most of the user-level and system administration content comes from SVR4. To help in the transition and integration from the old SunOS, Solaris 10 provides the BSD/SunOS Compatibility Package and the Binary Compatibility Package. Sun Microsystems has made binary versions of Solaris for the SPARC and Intel architectures and they are available for free for non-commercial purpose use. References: Tanenbaum, A.S. & Woodhull, A.S. (2006). Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition). USA: Pearson Education, Inc. Arpaci, A.C. & Arpaci, R.H (2005). Introduction to Operating Systems. Retrieved on 1 December 2006 from http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Classes/537/Fall2005/Lectures/lecture1.pdf Features new to Windows Vista. Retrieved on 1 December 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista Windows Vista. Retrieved on 1 December 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista Windows Vista. 10 Things You Need to Know about Deploying Windows Vista Retrieved on 1 December 2006 from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/11/Deployment/ Robbins, A. (2005). Unix in a Nutshell (4th Edition). USA: OReilly & Associates, Inc. UNIX Tutorial for Beginners. Retrieved on 1 December 2006 from http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/unixintro.html Read More