Estructuras de los sistemas operativos

Operating Systems Structures 1/35

Program execution (1)
Main article: Process (computing) The operating system acts as an interface between an application and the hardware. The user interacts with the hardware from "the other side". The operating system is a set of services which simplifies development of applications. Executing a program involves the creation of a process by the operatingsystem. The kernel creates a process by assigning memory and other resources, establishing a priority for the process (in multitasking systems), loading program code into memory, and executing the program. The program then interacts with the user and/or other devices performing its intended function.

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Interrupts (1)
Main article: interrupt Interrupts arecentral to operating systems as they provide an efficient way for the operating system to interact and react to its environment. The alternative is to have the operating system "watch" the various sources of input for events (polling) that require action -- not a good use of CPU resources. Interrupt-based programming is directly supported by most CPUs. Interrupts provide a computer with a way ofautomatically running specific code in response to events. Even very basic computers support hardware interrupts, and allow the programmer to specify code which may be run when that event takes place. When an interrupt is received the computer's hardware automatically suspends whatever program is currently running, saves its status, and runs computer code previously associated with the interrupt. Thisis analogous to placing a bookmark in a book when someone is interrupted by a phone call and then taking the call. In modern operating systems interrupts are handled by the operating system's kernel. Interrupts may come from either the computer's hardware or from the running program. When a hardware device triggers an interrupt the operating system's kernel decides how to deal with this event,generally by running some processing code. How much code gets run depends on the priority of the interrupt (for example: a person usually responds to a smoke detector alarm before answering the phone). The processing of hardware interrupts is a task that is usually delegated to software called device drivers, which may be either part of the operating system's kernel, part of another program, or both.Device drivers may then relay information to a running program by various means. A program may also trigger an interrupt to the operating system. If a program wishes to access hardware for example, it may interrupt the operating system's kernel, which causes control to be passed back to the kernel. The kernel will then process the request. If a program wishes additional resources (or wishes toshed resources) such as memory, it will trigger an interrupt to get the kernel's attention.

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Protected mode and supervisor mode (1)
Main article: Protected mode Main article: Supervisor mode Modern CPUs support something called dual mode operation. CPUs with this capability use two modes: protected mode and supervisor mode, which allow certain CPU functionsto be controlled and affected only by the operating system kernel. Here, protected mode does not refer specifically to the 80286 (Intel's x86 16-bit microprocessor) CPU feature, although its protected mode is very similar to it. CPUs might have other modes similar to 80286 protected mode as well, such as the virtual 8086 mode of the 80386 (Intel's x86 32-bit microprocessor or i386). However, theterm is used here more generally in operating system theory to refer to all modes which limit the capabilities of programs running in that mode, providing things like virtual memory addressing and limiting access to hardware in a manner determined by a program running in supervisor mode. Similar modes have existed in supercomputers, minicomputers, and mainframes as they are essential to fully...