Case Study : Linux In the previous chapters, we examined many operating system principles, abstractions, algorithms, and techniques in general. Now it is time to look at some concrete systems to see how these principles are applied in the real world. We will begin with Linux, a popular variant of UNIX, which runs on a wide variety of computers. It is one of the dominant operating systems on high-end workstations and servers, but it is also used on systems ranging from cell phones to supercomputers. It also illustrates many important design principles well.

HISTORY OF UNIX AND LINUX UNIX and Linux have a long and interesting history, so we will begin our study here. What started out as the pet project of one young researcher (Ken Thompson) has become billion dollar industry involving universities, multinational corporations, governments, and international standardization bodies.

Portable UNIX Now that UNIX was written in C, moving it to a new machine, known as porting it, was much easier than in the early days. Steve Johnson of Bell Labs designed and implemented the portable C compiler, which could be retargeted to produce code for any reasonable machine with a only a moderate amount of effort.

Berkeley UNIX One of the many universities that acquired UNIX Version 6 early on was the University of California at Berkeley. Because the complete source code was available, Berkeley was able to modify the system substantially. Aided by grants from ARPA, the U.S. Dept. of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, Berkeley produced and released an improved version for the PDP-11 called 1BSD (First Berkeley Software Distribution). This tape was followed quickly by 2BSD also for the PDP-11. More important were 3BSD and especially its successor, 4BSD for the VAX. Although AT&T had a VAX version of UNIX, called 32V, it was essentially Version 7. In contrast, 4BSD contained a large number of improvements.

Standard UNIX By the late 1980s, two different, and somewhat incompatible, versions of UNIX were in widespread use: 4.3BSD and System V Release 3. In addition, virtually every vendor added its own nonstandard enhancements. This split in the UNIX world, together with the fact that there were no standards for binary program formats, greatly inhibited the commercial success of UNIX because it was impossible for software vendors to write and package UNIX programs with the expectation that they would run on any UNIX system (as was routinely done with MS-DOS). Various attempts at standardizing UNIX initially failed. AT&T, for example, issued the SVID (System V Interface Definition), which defined all the system calls, file formats, and so on. This document was an attempt to keep all the System V vendors in line, but it had no effect on the enemy (BSD) camp, which just ignored it.

MINIX MINIX was one of the first UNIX-like systems based on a microkernel design. The idea behind a microkernel is to provide minimal functionality in the kernel to make it reliable and efficient. Consequently, memory management and the file system were pushed out into user processes. The kernel handled message passing between the processes and little else. The kernel was 1600 lines of C and 800 lines of assembler. For technical reasons relating to the 8088 architecture, the I/O device drivers (2900 additional lines of C) were also in the kernel. The file system (5100 lines of C) and memory manager (2200 lines of C) ran as two separate user processes. Microkernels have the advantage over monolithic systems that they are easy to understand and maintain due to their highly modular structure.

Linux The first version of Linux, 0.01, was released in 1991. It was cross-developed on a MINIX machine and borrowed numerous ideas from MINIX ranging from the structure of the source tree to the layout of the file system. However, it was a monolithic rather than a microkernel design, with the entire operating system in the kernel. The code size totaled 9,300 lines of C and 950 lines of assembler, roughly similar to MINIX version in size and also roughly comparable in functionality. Linux rapidly grew in size and evolved into a full production UNIX clone as virtual memory, a more sophisticated file system, and many other features were added.

Linux Goals UNIX was always an interactive system designed to handle multiple processes and multiple users at the same time. The model of a group of experienced programmers working together closely to produce advanced software is obviously very different from the personal computer model of a single beginner working alone with a word processor, and this difference is reflected throughout UNIX from start to finish. What is it that good programmers want in a system? To start with, most like their systems to be simple, elegant, and consistent.

The Shell Although Linux systems have a graphical user interface, most programmers and sophisticated users still prefer a command line interface, called the shell. Often they start one or more shell windows from the graphical user interface and just work in them. The shell command line interface is much faster to use, more powerful, easily extensible, and does not give the user RSI from having to use a mouse all the time. Below we will briefly describe the bash shell (bash). It is heavily based on the original UNIX shell, Bourne shell, and in fact its name is an acronym for Bourne Again SHell. Many new shells are also in use (ksh, csh, etc.), however, bash is the default shell in most Linux systems. When the shell starts up, it initializes itself, then types a prompt character, often a percent or dollar sign, on the screen and waits for the user to type a command line.

Linux Utility Programs The command-line (shell) user interface to Linux consists of a large number of standard utility programs. These programs can be divided into six categories, as follows: 1. File and directory manipulation commands. 2. Filters. 3. Program development tools such as editors and compilers. 4. Text processing. 5. System administration. 6. Miscellaneous.

Operating system types GUI Multiuser Multiprocessing Multitasking Multithreading

Operating system types GUI - Short for Graphical User Interface, a GUI Operating System contains graphics and icons and is commonly navigated by using a computer mouse. See the GUI definition for a complete definition. Below are some examples of GUI Operating Systems. System 7.x Windows 98 Windows CE Multi-user - A multi-user operating system allows for multiple users to use the same computer at the same time and/or different times. See the multi-user definition for a complete definition for a complete definition. Below are some examples of multi-user operating systems. Linux Unix Windows 2000

Operating system types Multiprocessing - An operating system capable of supporting and utilizing more than one computer processor. Below are some examples of multiprocessing operating systems. Linux Unix Windows 2000 Multitasking - An operating system that is capable of allowing multiple software processes to run at the same time. Below are some examples of multitasking operating systems. Unix Windows 2000 Multithreading - Operating systems that allow different parts of a software program to run concurrently. Operating systems that would fall into this category are: Linux, Unix, Windows 2000.