Operating System Theory

            As I navigate through my academic IT journey, I have grown confident in my choice to pursue this dream. I have learned so many things so far and I am excited to see how much more I can learn. I just finished learning about operating system theory. Operating systems have many different features. They provide a platform for running applications and offer a platform for application development. These applications vary in many ways and allow users to complete a variety of tasks. OS handles memory management and CPU scheduling. Memory management is done by managing which part of memory is being used, deciding which processes to move to and from memory, and allocation and deallocating memory space among other things. Another feature of the operating system involves protecting the system from internal and external threats. There are multiple levels of protection and security, and the operating system has features to control all levels.

            Another responsibility of the operating system is to manage how processes exchange information. A thread is a single flow of instructions within a process. Management of threads is important as this is how data is exchanged within the system. The operating manages the transfer of threads throughout the system by allocating resources. Resources are adjusted to change the process states of each individual task within the process until the entire process has been completed.

            Memory may seem infinite on modern computer systems, but this is not exactly the case. There is a limit to memory, but today’s computers have multiple ways to ensure that limit does not cause issues. Main memory is the primary memory element within a computer system which has a physical location within the computer. Virtual memory is memory that appears to exist within the system but has no physical location in the system. To prevent physical memory from reaching its limit, virtual memory stores data while the OS allocates memory locations in main memory. This helps to improve the performance of the system and prevent system crashes.

            An operating system I/O or Input/Output is the concept of the input and output data between the computer hardware component, device, or network. The most common examples of input and output devices are keyboards, mouses, printers, etc. Within the operating system, examples include system bus, disk controllers, disks, and tape drives. File management is the processes performed by the operating system that involve creating, organizing, accessing, manipulating, and controlling files that are stored in memory. These processes can include file creation, deletion, naming, and access control. This management is important because it is essential for maintaining a file system that operates effectively for the user.

            As stated before, protection is used to protect the system from itself and the users. This protection is intended to prevent malicious misuse of the system by users and programs. It also ensures that the shared resources are used properly and according to system designer or system administrators’ system policies. Protection also ensures that bad programs can only cause the minimal amount of damage possible. This is down by providing mechanisms for enforcing policies and can be done by using the principles of domain – or language-based protection. Language-based protection is the form of protection that uses the need-to-know principle. The need-to-know principle states that a process should only have access to objects that are needed to complete its tasks. This access should only be given for the exact amount of time needed to perform the task. The language-based protection principle is a set of techniques that is used to strengthen the security of applications. This is down by writing high level description of policies within the code of the application itself.

            Using all this information that I have learned about operating systems is something that I have started to do in my current daily work life, and I intend to continue to use this information in the future. I have used this information for basic troubleshooting of my personal and work computers. I will also use the information I have learned to help with purchasing new computer systems in the future. I look forward to learning more about all aspects of the IT world and I encourage everyone to explore this world as well.