Overview of Device Management

T

techguy101

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Jan 14, 2009
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Hi There,

I am currently working on an assignment about device managment in operating systems. I must give an overview of the techniques used by different operating systems to manage system device, internal or external.

I'm thinking that things like device drivers, interrupts and such will be areas that I will examine. I have tried googling this but results are hit and miss..usually far too advanced for me understand.

Does anybody here have any advice on where to look or what kind of terms I should be throwing at google.


I would also like to say that I am unaware of any "Homework Policies" that may exist on this site and that my question does relate directly to a college assignment. However, by no means am I looking for a direct answer or solution to any of my questions. Just advice and and some pointers..thanks.

Thanks,
Techguy101​
 
Maybe you should have held off on that nickname till you actually graduated. :D

JUST KIDDING... but you do leave yourself wide open with that one. ;)

Do research on the HAL that is used as "the standard" way of managing hardware devices in modern - HAL stands for Hardware Allocation Layer, and that should get your more information. The "Device Manager" in Windows and "System Preferences" in OSX as well as whatever Linux distro you choose uses are basically GUI representations of the management interface.

The HAL itself is the specific portion of the OS that deals with handling all hardware interface requests - it's the middle-man, so to speak, as modern OSes don't typically allow direct hardware control anymore. That is a security risk nowadays and you've got to have that middle layer where everything passes through and either gets the yes or no answer for sending or receiving data through the HAL.

Mind you, HAL is just an acronym, it doesn't mean anything specific to just one single OS; it's a general concept that all modern OSes share in common.

Good luck...
 
Thanks for pointers guys... I'll be sure to look into this..

I'm currently working on something else that is approaching the deadline faster than i'm comfortable with..oh well!!

Joe Average said:
Maybe you should have held off on that nickname till you actually graduated. :D
Click to expand...

Ha ha, your so right... I feel like a twat everytime I ask a question on a forum with this handle.
 
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