cst 334: week 1

prompt: write a 1 - 2 paragraph description of what you learned this first week in CST 334

This week, I learned about the basics of operating systems, and what virtualization is. Basically, we're taking tangible, physical hardware, like the CPU, disk, and RAM, and using this to allow multiple programs to run at the same time efficiently. The OS specifically is providing system calls for accessing these hardware resources, managing them, and making sure everything is happening without crashing (hopefully).

I also learned from the reading a bit about design goals for an operating system, specifically about performance, reliability, and protection. I also learned some background context about the history of OS, including early batches, libraries, and Linux.

Finally, I had to teach myself C, since I've never used it before. Overall, a really good first week!