Preparing for Linux Installation - Unix Systems - Lecture Slides, Slides of Advanced Operating Systems

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Chapter 2

Preparing for Linux Installation

Objectives

• Describe common types of hardware and their features
• Obtain the hardware and software information necessary to install Linux

Understanding Hardware: CPUs (continued)

• Processor architecture: Arrangement of a processor’s integral electronics
• Two main processor architectures:
  • Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC)
  • Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC)

Understanding Hardware: CPUs (continued)

• Clock speed: Internal time cycle of a processor
  • Determines speed that processor executes commands
  • Measured in Megahertz (MHz)
• A processor may require one cycle to complete a command or may be superscalar
• Amount of information a processor can process at one time is a major factor in clock speed - Measured in binary digits (bits) - The more information that can be worked on at once, the faster data can be manipulated

Understanding Hardware: CPUs (continued)

• Multiple processors can work together
  • Perform the same tasks faster
  • Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP): Allows OS and memory to use both processors simultaneously for any task
  • ASymmetric Multi-Processing (ASMP): Each processor given a set of tasks to complete independently

Understanding Hardware: Physical Memory

• Storage area for information that is directly wired through circuit boards to the processor
• Two main categories:
  • Random Access Memory (RAM)
    • Volatile memory
  • Read Only Memory (ROM)

Understanding Hardware: Physical Memory―RAM (continued)

• Three main types of DRAM sticks:
  • Single In-line Memory Modules (SIMM)
    • No longer produced
  • Dual In-line Memory Modules (DIMM)
  • Small Outline Dual In-line Memory Modules (SODIMM) - Used in portable notebook computers and Macintosh systems

Understanding Hardware: Physical Memory―RAM (continued)

• Three recent DIMM technologies:
  • Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM)
  • Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (DDR SDRAM)
  • Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory (RDRAM)

Understanding Hardware: Physical Memory―ROM Variants

• Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM): Can only be written to once
• Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EPROM): Contents can be repeatedly erased and rewritten as a whole
• Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM): Whole or partial contents can be repeatedly erased/rewritten

Understanding Hardware: Disk Drives

• Most information in a computer maintained using nonvolatile media, not consisting of integrated circuits - Hard disk - Floppy disk - CD-ROM, DVD - CD-RW, DVD-RW disk - Zip disk - Flash Memory

Understanding Hardware:

Disk Drives―HDDs (continued)

Table 2-1: IDE HDD configurations

Understanding Hardware: Disk Drives―HDDs (continued)

• Partitions: Small, manageable sections of a hard drive
• Filesystems: Specify how data should reside on the hard disk itself - A partition must be formatted with a filesystem

Understanding Hardware:

Disk Drives―HDDs (continued)

Table 2-2: Example partitioning scheme for a primary master IDE HDD

Understanding Hardware: Disk Drives―Other Information Storage Devices

• Removable media: Information storage media that can be removed from the computer - Transferable between computers
• Floppy disks: Store information electro- magnetically - Used in floppy disk drives
• Zip disks: Similar to floppy disks
  • Can store much more information
  • Used in zip drives