Operating Systems –

PC Hardware and
Booting

Dr. M. Brindha
Associate Professor
Department of CSE
NIT, Trichy-15
CPUs

Processor
i386
 Everything has an
address

0x3c0:0x3cf
0x60:0x6f

Processor
i386

0x1f0:0x1f7

0x0 : 0x200000 0x60:0x6f

 Address
Types
• Memory Addresses
• IO Addresses
• Memory Mapped IO Addresses
 Address Types : (Memory
Addresses)
• Range : 0 to (RAM size or 232-1)
• Where main memory is
mapped
• – Used to store data for code,
heap, stack, OS, etc.
Accessed by load/store
instructions

Memory Map
Low and Extended Memory
(Legacy Issues)
• Why study it?
– Backward compatibility
• 8088 has 20 address lines; can address 220 bytes (1MB)
• Memory Ranges
– 0 to 640KB used by IBM PC MSDOS
• Other DOS versions have a different memory limit
– 640 KB to 1MB used by video buffers, expansion ROMS, BIOS
ROMs
– 1 MB onwards called extended memory
• Modern processors have more usable memory
– OSes like Linux and x86 simply ignore the first 1MB and load
kernel in extended memory
 Address Types : (IO
Ports)
• Range : 0 to 216-1
• Used to access devices
• Uses a different bus compared
to RAM memory access
– Completely isolated from
• memory
Accessed by in/out
instructions
inb $0x64, %al
outb %al, $0x64

ref : http://bochs.sourceforge.net/techspec/PORTS.LST 8
 Memory Mapped
I/O
• Why?
– More space
• Devices and RAM share
the same address
• space
Instructions used to
access RAM can also be
used to access devices.
– Eg load/store

Memory Map
Who decides the address
ranges?
• Standards / Legacy
– Such as the IBM PC standard
– Fixed for all PCs.
– Ensures BIOS and OS to be portable across
platforms
• Plug and Play devices
– Address range set by BIOS or OS
– A device address range may vary every time the
system is restarted
 PC
Organization
Processor Processor Processor Processor
1 2 3 4

front side bus

Memory bus
DRAM North Bridge

PCI Bus 0
bus
DMI
South Bridge PCI-PCI Ethernet USB
VGA
Bridge Controller Controller

PCI Bus 1
USB
USB USB USB device
device bridge device
More
PCI
Legacy devices
Devices PS2
(keyboard, mouse,
PC speaker)
 The x86 Evolution (8088)
General Purpose Registers
• 8088
– •16 bit microprocessor
– •20 bit external address bus
• Can address 1MB of memory
– •Registers are 16 bit
• General Purpose Registers
• AX, BX, CD, DX,
• Pointer Registers
• BP, SI, DI, SP
• Instruction Pointer : IP
• Segment Registers GPRs can be accessed as
• CS, SS, DS, ES 8 bit or 16 bit registers
– •Accessing memory Eg.
• (segment_base << 4) + offset mov $0x1, %ah ; 8 bit move
eg: (CS << 4) + IP mov $0x1, %ax ; 16 bit move
 The x86 Evolution (80386)
General Purpose Registers
• 80386
– 32 bit microprocessor
(1995)
– 32 bit external address bus
• Can address 4GB of memory
– Registers are 32 bit
General Purpose Registers
EAX, EBX, ECD, EDX,
Pointer Registers
EBP, ESI, EDI, ESP
Instruction Pointer : IP
Segment Registers GPRs can be accessed as
CS, SS, DS, ES 8, 16, 32 bit registers
– Lot more features e.g.
• Protected operating mode mov $0x1, %ah ; 8 bit move
• Virtual addresses mov $0x1, %ax ; 16 bit move
mov $0x1, %eax ; 32 bit move
 The x86 Evolution
(k8)
• AMD k8 (2003)
– RAX instead of EAX
– X86-64, x64, amd64, intel64: all same thing
• Backward compatibility
– All systems backward compatible with 8088
 Building and Booting an Operating System

• Operating systems generally designed to run on a

class of systems with variety of peripherals
• Commonly, operating system already installed on
purchased computer
• But can build and install some other operating systems
• If generating an operating system from scratch
• Write the operating system source code
• Configure the operating system for the system on which it
will run
• Compile the operating system
• Install the operating system
• Boot the computer and its new operating system
System Boot
• When power initialized on system, execution starts at a fixed
memory location
• Operating system must be made available to hardware so
hardware can start it
• Small piece of code – bootstrap loader, BIOS, stored in ROM
or EEPROM locates the kernel, loads it into memory, and starts it
• Sometimes two-step process where boot block at fixed location
loaded by ROM code, which loads bootstrap loader from disk
• Modern systems replace BIOS with Unified Extensible
Firmware Interface (UEFI)
• Common bootstrap loader, GRUB, allows selection of kernel
from multiple disks, versions, kernel options
• Kernel loads and system is then running
• Boot loaders frequently allow various boot states, such as single
user mode
 Powering Up
Power on Reset

reset
 Powering up :
Reset
Power on Reset
Physical address = (CS << 4) + IP
Every register initialized = 0xffff0
to 0 except • first instruction fetched from location 0xffff0.
CS=0xf000, IP=0xfff0
• Processor in real mode (backward compatible to
8088)
• Limited to 1MB addresses
• No protection; no privilege levels
• Direct access to all memory
• No multi-tasking
Inaccessible • First instruction is at right on top of accessible
memory
memory
• Should jump to another location
first instructions 0x100000
(Jump to rom bios) 0xFFFF0

0xF0000
BIO
S
0
RAM
 Powering up :
BIOS
Power on Reset

Every register initialized

to 0 except
CS=0xf000, IP=0xfff0

BIOS

• Present in a small chip connected to the

processor
– Flash/EPROM/E2PROM
• Does the following
– Power on self test
– Initialize video card and other devices
– Display BIOS screen
– Perform brief memory test
– Set DRAM memory parameters
– Configure Plug & Play devices
– Assign resources (DMA channels & IRQs)
– Identify the boot device
• Read sector 0 from boot device into memory location 0x7c00
• Jumps to 0x7c00
 Powering up :
MBR
Power on Reset
• Sector 0 in the disk called Master Boot Record (MBR)
Every register initialized
to 0 except • Contains code that boots the OS or another boot loader
CS=0xf000, IP=0xfff0 • Copied from disk to RAM (@0x7c00) by BIOS and then
begins to execute
BIOS • Size 512 bytes
446 bytes bootable code
64 bytes disk partition information (16 bytes per partition)
MBR Execution 2 bytes signature
• Typically, MBR code looks through partition table and
loads the bootloader (such as Linux or Windows)
• or, it may directly load the OS
 Powering Up :
bootloader
Power on Reset

Every register initialized • Loads the operating system

to 0 except – May also allow the user to select which OS to load
CS=0xf000, IP=0xfff0 (eg. Windows or Linux)
• Other jobs done
BIOS – Disable interrupts :
• Don’t want to bother with interrupts at this stage
• Interrupts re-enabled by xv6 when ready
MBR Execution – Setup GDT
– Switch from real mode to protected mode
– Read operating system from disk
Bootloader

The bootloader may be present in the MBR (sector 0)

itself
 Powering Up :
OS
Power on Reset

Every register initialized

to 0 except
CS=0xf000, IP=0xfff0

• Set up virtual memory

BIOS
• Initialize interrupt vectors
• Initilize
MBR Execution • timers,
• monitors,
Bootloader • hard disks,
• consoles,
• filesystems,
OS
• Initialized other processors (if any)
• Startup user process
 Multiprocessor
Organization
Processor Processor Processor Processor
1 2 3 4

front side bus

Memory bus
DRAM North Bridge

• Memory Symmetry
• All processors in the system share the same memory space
• Advantage : Common operating system code
• I/O Symmetry
• All processors share the same I/O subsystem
• Every processor can receive interrupt from any I/O device
 Multiprocessor
Booting
• One processor designated as ‘Boot Processor’ (BSP)
– Designation done either by Hardware or BIOS
– All other processors are designated AP (Application Processors)
• •
BIOS boots the BSP
•
• •BSP learns system configuration
BSP triggers boot of other AP
• – Done by sending an Startup IPI (inter processor interrupt) signal to the AP

http://www.intel.com/design/pentium/datashts/24201606.pdf 26
Building and Booting Linux

• Download Linux source code

(http://www.kernel.org)
• Configure kernel via “make menuconfig”
• Compile the kernel using “make”
• Produces vmlinuz, the kernel image
• Compile kernel modules via “make modules”
• Install kernel modules into vmlinuz via “make
modules_install”
• Install new kernel on the system via “make
install”
Thank You!!!