• DocumentCode
    2295052
  • Title

    Exterminate all operating system abstractions

  • Author

    Engler, Dawson R. ; Kaashoek, M. Frans

  • Author_Institution
    Lab. for Comput. Sci., MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • fYear
    1995
  • fDate
    4-5 May 1995
  • Firstpage
    78
  • Lastpage
    83
  • Abstract
    The defining tragedy of the operating systems community has been the definition of an operating system as software that both multiplexes and abstracts physical resources. The view that the OS should abstract the hardware is based on the assumption that it is possible bath to define abstractions that are appropriate for all areas and to implement them to perform efficiently in all situations. We believe that the fallacy of this quixotic goal is self-evident, and that the operating system problems of the last two decades (poor performance, poor reliability, poor adaptability, and inflexibility) can be traced back to it. The solution we propose is simple: complete elimination of operating system abstractions by lowering the operating system interface to the hardware level
  • Keywords
    operating systems (computers); hardware abstraction; hardware level operating system interface; inflexibility; multiplexing; operating system abstraction elimination; physical resources; poor adaptability; poor performance; poor reliability; software; Abstracts; Application software; Computer science; Costs; Hardware; History; Laboratories; Operating systems; Software standards; Software systems;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • Conference_Titel
    Hot Topics in Operating Systems, 1995. (HotOS-V), Proceedings., Fifth Workshop on
  • Conference_Location
    Orcas Island, WA
  • Print_ISBN
    0-8186-7081-9
  • Type

    conf

  • DOI
    10.1109/HOTOS.1995.513459
  • Filename
    513459