OS Overview

(Usage hints for this presentation)

IT Systems, Summer Term 2025
Dr. Jens Lechtenbörger (License Information)

Chair of Data Science: Machine Learning and Data Engineering (Prof. Gieseke)
Dept. of Information Systems
University of Münster, Germany

1. Introduction

1.1. Recall: Big Picture of IT Systems

Explore abstractions bottom-up
- Computer Architecture: Build computer from logic gates
  “NAND” under CC0 1.0; from GitLab
  - Von Neumann architecture
  - CPU (ALU), RAM, I/O
    “CPU” under CC0 1.0; cropped and converted from Pixabay
- Experiment with OS concepts
  - Explain core OS management concepts, e.g., processes, threads, virtual memory
  - Use GNU/Linux command line and explore system
    “Tux, the Linux mascot” under CC0 1.0; from Wikimedia Commons
- Experiment with containerization for cloud infrastructures
  - Explain core concepts
  - Build images, run Docker containers and Kubernetes cluster
    “Kubernetes logo” under Kubernetes Branding Guidelines; from GitHub
    
    “Docker logo” under Docker Brand Guidelines; from Docker

1.1.1. OS Responsibilities

What does your OS even do?

1.1.2. Definition of Operating System

Definition from (Hailperin 2019): Software
- that uses hardware resources of a computer system
- to provide support for the execution of other software.

Figure 1.1 of cite:Hai17

“Figure 1.1 of cite:Hai17” by Max Hailperin under CC BY-SA 3.0; converted from GitHub

1.2. Prerequisite Knowledge

Be able to write, compile, and execute small Java programs
- What is an object? What is the meaning of this in Java?
- How do you execute a program that requires a command line argument?
Be able to explain basic data structures (stacks, queues, trees) and algorithms (in particular, hashing)
Being able to explain the database transaction concept and update anomalies

2. OS Plan

2.1. Big Picture of OS Part

Although the Hack computer does not have an OS, it will help to recall how you interact with that machine. On Hack, you are able to run a single program, where you access hardware directly. E.g., reading from the keyboard requires access to a special memory location that represents the state of the underlying hardware device.

With OSs, applications no longer have direct access to hardware. Instead, OSs manage applications and their use of hardware. You will learn that the core part of OSs is called kernel, and each vendor’s kernel comes with a specific interface to provide functionality to applications, usually in the form of so-called system calls. E.g., when you access System.in in Java to read keyboard input, the Java runtime executes a system call to ask the OS for keyboard input.

2.2. A Quiz

Bibliography

Hailperin, Max. 2019. Operating Systems and Middleware – Supporting Controlled Interaction. revised edition 1.3.1. https://gustavus.edu/mcs/max/os-book/.

License Information

Source files are available on GitLab (check out embedded submodules) under free licenses. Icons of custom controls are by @fontawesome, released under CC BY 4.0.