os mélange
DESCRIPTION
We are all mostly familiar with just Windows, Linux, Unix (along with all the Unix derives) and Mac OS as the primary Operating Systems available. There is a whole collection of operating systems out there, ranging from the amateur hobbyist's take on conquering the OS world to full blown systems which either found a niche market or got doomed to oblivion. I shall attempt to present a small sample from this varied and interesting set.From the Un-Distinguished Lecture Series (http://ws.cs.ubc.ca/~udls/). The talk was given Feb. 9, 2007TRANSCRIPT
OS mélange
What does an OS do ?
● Resource control/sharing● Resource Policing● Lower layer abstraction● Mechanism Vs Policy
OS T i t -b i ts
● Preemptive Multitasking vs Cooperative Multitasking
● OS API vs OS Implementation● Microkernel Vs Monolithic Kernels● Hardware based isolation aka Address
spaces● Posix – Portable Operating System
Interface for Unix
Microkerne l OS St ructure
Kernel
Hardware
Severs Servers File System Drivers
HURD
● Hurd' stands for `Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons'. And, then, `Hird' stands for `Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth'
● GNU's dream OS, started dev in 1990● Used the MACH microkernel● Due to MACH's Performance woes,they
have moved over to L4 very recently● Microkernel Approach
HURD
● HURD development never finished● Linux became too popular, most of the
GNU work done came to be used in the Linux Operating System.
● Purist insist on calling such systems GNU/ Linux
L4
● MACH, the pioneer of the Microkernel idea had miserable performance
● Extremely low memory footprint● FAST !● Highly optimised● Due to its small size, efforts are on to
prove its correctness formally L4.Sec Project
BEOS Screen shot
BEOS
● Made in 1991 by BE Inc● Initially ran on ATT hardware● Ported to Power PC in hope Apple would
buy them, but Apple instead went for NextStep
● Failed commercially● Band of loyal supporters have tried to a
complete re-implementation of the BEOS API in “Haiku”
Singu lar i ty
● Microsoft Research project● Radically different approach● Software based Isolation● Entire OS written in C#, which is a safe,
managed language● There is just one Address space, isolation
is guaranteed by maintaining invariants in terms of “no cross references” etc
Guess the operat ing sys tem ??
React OS – Windows Done Right
● Clean room re-engineering of windows API
● GPL● Under heavy development● Currently undergoing a phase of self audit
to ensure complete legality
Sy l lab le
● Hobbyist OS gone big● 99% POSIX compliant● Only for x86● Incredibly responsive and fast boot up
– 8 second bootup– 2 second login
Future Di rect ions
● Web Only operating systems– Google OS ??
● Virtual Machine based approach– Simulate multiple machines on your machine,
run whatever OS you fancy on each of them (Xen, VMware)
Other Notab les
● OS2/Warp● FreeBsd● Minix
Images
● Linux Logo: http://www.linux.org/info/logos.html
● GNU Logo: http://www.gnu.org/
● FreeBSD logo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD
● L4 Pistachio Logo:http://l4ka.org/projects/pistachio/
● Hurd logo: http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html
● Syllable logo: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=7900
● BEOS Snapshot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS
● ReactOS Snapshot: http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html