c

















 



 

The history of the UNIX System dates back to the late 1960s when MIT, AT&T Bell Labs, and
then-computer manufacturer GE (General Electric) worked on an experimental operating
system called Multics.

Multics (






 ) was designed to be an
interactive operating system for the GE 645 mainframe computer.

In 1969, !
"

 one of the Bell Labs researchers involved in the Multics project.
With help from Dennis Ritchie, Thompson rewrote #
thatgave him the opportunity to
write a $%


 on the PDP-7, using the structure of a file system
"

&
'# &

'
 had designed.

Because the new multitasking operating system for the ()(*+ could support two
simultaneous users, it was called 
,Ô 






 r
the first use of this name is attributed to 
! . The name was changed slightly to
Ô


-.+/, and that has stuck ever since.

In -.+0, '# 

"


 rewrote the % in the C programming language, a high-
level language unlike most systems for small machines, which were generally written in
assembly language.

UNIX System concepts continued to grow. (, originally suggested by )


#
y, were
developed by !
"

 in the early 1970s. The introduction of pipes made possible
the development of the UNIX philosophy, including the concept of a toolbox of utilities.
Using pipes, tools can be connected, with one taking input from another utility and passing
output to a third.

UNIX System III, the various research editions, and experimental versions were distributed
by Thompson and Richie to colleagues at universities and other research laboratories.

In the late -.+/, the United States Department of )1
2#
'#
(
3#

#
,)'( decided that the development of their version of UNIX should be carried
out at Berkeley. So in 1983, BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) 4.1 was released.

Many computer vendors have used the BSD System as a foundation for the development of
their variants of UNIX. Some of the most important of these variants are the 
4

&
 )
567

System V.

 



 


In -..-

"
2, then a student at the 2


%, 8, decided to
build a kernel for a new UNIX -like operating system for PCs.

Torvalds had been working with the  operating system built by $
"9
to illustrate features of UNIX.

Torvalds wanted a UNIX version for PCs that captured the features of Minix. He considered
his work on this new kernel, which was eventually named 2 

 
c
:
 

22$


;
# #
$

9

)

A) The UNIX operating system is made up of several major components. These components
include the '
ï the 

#, the i ï
 2
ÔÔ
Ô  ï and the
ã



,





 .

" 
!

a The j
 is the part of the operating system that interacts directly with the
hardware of a computer, through




 that are built into the kernel.
a It provides sets of services that can be used by programs, insulating these programs
from the underlying hardware.
a The major functions of the kernel are
 To manage computer memory, to control access to the computer,
 To maintain the file system, to handle interrupts (signals to terminate
execution),
 To handle errors, to perform input and output services (which allow
computers to interact with terminals, storage devices, and printers), and
 To allocate the resources of the computer (such as the CPU or inpu t/output
devices) among users.

" 


#

a Programs interact with the kernel through i

ãv

a System calls tell the kernel to carry out various tasks for the program, such as
 opening a file, writing to a file,
 obtaining information about a file,
 executing a program, terminating a process, changing the priority of a
process, and
 Getting the time of day.
a Different UNIX variants or even two different implementations of a particular
UNIX variant may bear little resemblance to one another.



a The UNIX System contains several hundred utilities or user programs.

a Commands are also known as
ï because they can be used separately or put
together in various ways to carry out useful tasks.
a ou execute these utilities by invoking them by name through the shellr this is why
they are called O
v
a There are utilities
  for text editing and processing,
 for managing information,
 for electronic communications and networking,
 for performing calculations,
 for developing computer programs,
 for system administration, and
 for many other purposes.

" 


a The  reads your commands and interprets them as requests to execute a
program or programs, which it then arranges to have carried out.
a Because the shell plays this role, it is called a O

 
v
a Besides being a command interpreter, the shell is also a programming language.

c




!




 #
%

a In a monolithic kernel, all OS services run along with the main kernel t hread, thus
also residing in the same memory area.
a This approach provides rich and powerful hardware access. Ken Thompson, maintain
that it is "easier to implement a monolithic kernel͟ thanmicrokernels.
a The main disadvantages of monolithic kernels are th e dependencies between system
components Ͷ a bug in a device driver might crash the entire system Ͷ and the fact
that large kernels can become very difficult to maintain.


#
%

a The microkernel approach consists of defining a simple abstraction ov er the

hardware, with a set of primitives or system calls to implement minimal OS services
such as memory management, multitasking, and inter-process communication.
Other services, including those normally provided by the kernel, such as networking,
are implemented in user-space programs, referred to as .
a Microkernels are easier to maintain than monolithic kernels, but the large number of
system calls and context switches might slow down the system because they
typically generate more overhead than plain function calls.
a A microkernel allows the implementation of the remaining part of the operating
system as a normal application program written in a high-level language, and the use
of different operating systems on top of the same unchanged kernel.

c








!

A) The j
 is the part of the operating system that interacts directly with the hardware of
a computer, through




 that are built into the kernel.

It provides sets of services that can be used by programs, insulating these programs from
the underlying hardware.

The major functions of the kernel are

a to manage computer memory : The kernel has full access to the system's memory
and must allow processes to safely access this memory as they require it.
a to control access to the comput er
a to maintain the file system,
a to handle interrupts (signals to terminate execution),
a to handle errors,
a to perform input and output services, and
a to allocate the resources of the computer among users.

Programs interact with the kernel through 


v System calls tell the kernel to carry
out various tasks for the program, such as opening a file, writing to a file, obtaining
information about a file, executing a program, terminating a process, changing the priority
of a process.

c
:
)





;

a The shell sits between you and the operating system, acting as a command
interpreter. It reads your terminal input and translates the commands into actions
taken by the system.
a The original shell was the Bourne shell,  . Every UNIX platform will either have the
Bourne shell, or a Bourne compatible shell available.
a The C shell,
 , was written and is now found on most, but not all, UNIX systems. It
uses C type syntax, the language UNIX is written in, but has a more awkward
input/output implementation.
a The default prompt for the Bourne shell is w
(or <, for the root user). The default
prompt for the C shell is=.
a Numerous other shells are available from the network. Almost all of them are based
on either  or
 with extensions.
a Some of the more well known of these may be on your favourite Unix system: the
Korn shell, j , by David Korn and the Bourne Again Shell,  , from the Free
Software Foundations GNU project, both based on  , the T-C shell,
 , and the
extended C shell,
 , both based on
 .