User:Johnburger/OS/Design

An Operating System (OS) is different things to different people. Some think of it as the pretty windowing interface. Others think of it as a sophisticated work tool. Still others can't even distinguish it from the applications that they run.

To an OS developer, however, the OS is the implementation of something that tames the hardware of the computer; controls it and distributes it for the use of the applications that it will deign to allow run.

To me, an Operating System is a hierarchy of layers:

• At the core is the CPU and RAM: the processor and available storage. The architecture defines the way the Operating System can possibly operate - for example, without a Memory Management Unit there can be no Paging. The resources provided here are the fundamental building blocks.
• Next is the peripheral hardware. The OS needs to provide software that controls these - and share their usage among all processes.
• Building on the peripherals are the services that use them: abstractions to handle their complexity and "common up" differences between different versions of the hardware. For example, both a hard drive and USB memory stick provide raw storage, while a File System layers on the concepts of directories and files.
• Finally, applications use these services, and (usually indirectly) the hardware they rely on, to provide features to the end user. The OS doesn't provide many applications - indeed, one could argue it provides none.

A more specific and detailed breakdown of these separate layers is provided below.