 The 1960’s definition of an Operating system is “the

software that controls the hardware.” However, today,

due to microcode we need a better definition.
 The most important program that runs on a computer.
Every general-purpose computer must have an Operating
system to run other programs.
 For large systems, the Operating system has even greater
responsibilites and power. It is like a traffic cop.
 Some examples of operating system are LINUX ,
UNIX, Ms-Windows, MS-DOS, VMS, MVS, VM
ETC.
 An Operating system (OS) is an interface between
hardware and user which is responsible for the
management and coordination of activities and that acts
as a host for computing applications run on the machine.
 An Operating system (OS) is software, consisting of
programs and data, that runs on computer hardware
resources and provide common services for efficient
execution of various applications software.
The two main objectives of OPERATING SYSTEM is:-
 Making a computer system user friendly:-

A computer system consist of one or more processors,

main memory and many type of I/O devices such as
disks, tapes, terminals, network interface, etc. Writing
programs for using these hardware resources correctly
and efficiently is an extremely difficult job.
The gradually evolved solution to handle this problem is
to put a layer of software on top of the bare hardware, to
manage all the parts of system
And present the user with an interface or virtual machine
that is easier to program and use. This layer of software is
called OPERATING SYSTEM.
 Managing there sources of a computer system:-

The second most important job of Operating system is to

manage the various resources of the computer system.
This involves performing such tasks as keeping track of
‘who is using which resources,’ granting resources
requests, accounting for resources usage, and mediating
conflicting requests from different program and users.
 The 1940’s - FIRST GENERATION
 The 1950’ - SECOND GENERATION
 The 1960’s - THIRD GENERATION
 Onward 1960’s - FOURTH GENERATION
There are two type of Operating System are as follows:-
 Single user OPERATING SYSTEM (for example MS-DOS)

 Multi user OPERATING SYSTEM (for example LINUX,

WINDOWS, etc.)
 MS-DOS
 MICROSOFT WINDOWS 3.1 AND 3.11
 MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98
 WINDOWS 98 SE
 MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000
 WINDOWS 7
 MAC 059
 MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP
 MICROSOFT WINDOWS ME
 Multi user OPERATING SYSTEM
 Multi tasking OPERATING SYSTEM
 Multiprocessing OPERATING SYSTEM
 Multithreading OPERATING SYSTEM
 Real time OPERATING SYSTEM
 Disturbed OPERATING SYSTEM
 Embedded OPERATING SYSTEM
 Multi user Operating system allows concurrent access by
multiple users of computers.
 Time sharing systems are most batch processing systems
for mainframe computers are multi users system.
 An example is LINUX server where multiple remote users
have access to the shell prompt at the same time.
Multi programming system are designed to maximize
CPU usage. In fact, depending on CPU utilization during the
course of processing, jobs are broadly classified into
following two types:-
 CPU-BOUND JOBS – These jobs mostly perform
numerical calculation, with little I/O operations. They
are so called because they heavily utilized the CPU during
the course of their processing. Programs used for
scientific and engineering computations usually fall in
this category of jobs.
 I/O -BOUND JOBS – These jobs normally input vast
amount of data, perform very little computation, and
output large amount of info.
These is because during the course of their processing, their
CPU utilization is very low and most of the time, they
perform I/O operations. Programs used for commercial
data processing applications usually, fall in this category
of this jobs.
Requirements of multi user system
Multi user systems have better throughput then
uniprogramming system because the CPU idle time is
drastically reduce. However, Multi user system are fairly
sophisticated because they require the following
additional hardware and software features.
 Large memory
 Memory protection
 Job status preservation
 Proper job mix
 CPU scheduling
 Multitasking allows more than one program to run
concurrently.
 Multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks, also
known as processes, share common processing resources
such as a CPU.
 In multitasking, only one CPU is involved, but it switches
from one program to another so quickly that it gives the
appearance of executing all the programs at the same
time.
Multitasking solves the problem by scheduling which task
may be the one running at any time, and when another
waiting task gets a turn. The act of reassigning a CPU
from one task to another one os called a CONTEXT
SWITCH. When context switches occur frequently
enough the illusion of parallelism is achived. Even on
computers with more than one CPU (called
multiprocessor machines), multitasking allows many
more task to be run than there are CPUs.
Diffrence between multi
user and multi tasking:-
Difference between Multi user and Multi tasking is the
concurrent execution of multiple jobs (of same or
different users) in a Multi user system, while
Multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple
jobs (often referred to as task of same user) in a single-
user system.
 Multi processing, in a general , refers to the utilization of
multiple CPUs in a single computer system.
 Multi processing operating systems enable several
programs to run concurrently.
 Linux is one of the most widely used Multi processing
systems, but there are many others, including Os/2 for
high – end PCs.
 Operating system must allocate resources to competing
processes in a reasonable manner.
 It is also called as Parallel Processing.

Multi processing systems are basically of two types namely:-

 Tightly and loosely coupled Multiprocessing systems.

 Loosely coupled Multiprocessing systems.

Advantages of Multi processing OS:-

 Better performance

 Better reliability
Limitations of Multiprocessing:-
 Require very sophisticated Operating system.

 Such OS is complex and time taking job.

 This are expensive to procure and maintain.

 Multi threading allows different parts of a single
program to run concurrently.
 It is the ability of an Operating system to execute
different parts of a program called Threads,
simultaneously.
 Multi threading is generally done in java programming.
 Threads are popular way to improve applications
performance.
 In traditional Operating systems, the basic unit of CPU
utilization is a process. Each process has its own program
counter.
 On the other hand, in Operating system, with threads
facility, the basic unit of CPU utilization is thread. Each
thread of a process has its own program counter.
Difference between Multi user and
Multi processing:-
 Multi programming is interleaved execution of two or
more processes by a single-CPU computer system.
 On the other hand, Multi processing is the simultaneous
execution of two or more processes by a computer system
having more than one CPU.