CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iooperating-systemkernel
AMDG
AMDG

Reputation: 1202

How does an OS kernel define all the inputs and outputs?

I want to know how an OS kernel defines its own inputs and outputs to make the computer run. Of course you need the right hardware for it to work, but how can you simply just make some variable and call it USB_PORT_1 or something? Is it having to do with firmware as well? Assigning arbitrary values do nothing on its own, so there must be something I am missing between the interaction of the hardware and software when you plug in a 1 terabyte HDD into your USB 3.0 Slot that is marked by the kernel as USB3_PORT_0. At this point there is obviously some stuff going on in the firmware, so what is it?

Reason: I'm making one.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 128

Answers (1)

Dougvj
Dougvj

Reputation: 6585

To truely understand the interaction between hardware and software you have to understand how things work at a low level. What is a variable? In a programming language, variables may be assigned values that can later be modified, etc. But where is this stored physically in the machine? The truth is that it can be stored in several places. It could be in one of the processor's registers, it could be in RAM, or it could be in a completely difference place entirely.

When the kernel wishes to communicate with hardware, sometimes it may go through what you call firmware but for the most part it doesn't have to. Hardware exposes itself to the kernel in a variety of ways but the simplest way to think about it is as RAM. RAM is accessable with an address, so 0x1000 is a memory address somewhere in RAM. Speaking generallly, There is no reason that any particular address has to be mapped to RAM. Suppose I have a USB controller. I can map some address (lets call it 0xDEADBEEF) to this memory controller. So, if I read from 0xDEADBEEF it might tell me how many devices are connected to the system. Another adjacent address may tell me which port, etc etc. Every device does this differently, so we have device drivers that tell the kernel how the device is accessed, and then the kernel doesn't have to wory about specific memory addresses or anything, it simply abstracts everything into something called "USB3_PORT_0." The kernel and software simply use this to refer to the device, and the device driver translates that into a set of accesses via memory with interrupts, etc.

It is impossible for me to enumerate the number of ways harware and software can interact, however this should give you an idea of how it is done.

Upvotes: 2

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