The topic starts by understanding the need for and function of operating systems. See Operating systems 1 and 2.

A good way to introduce this is to get students to brainstorm the operating systems that are out there, and you could perhaps instruct students to have a go at some different operating systems, either through having some computers with them installed (Windows, Linux, Mac OS), or by having some different versions of operating systems on Raspberry Pi SD cards: See Operating systems 3 or through emulators; see Operating systems 4.

Students should discuss why they use certain operating systems, positive and negative experiences they have had etc.

A single/group card matching task to help students learn about the functionality of an operating system: see Operating systems 5 link.

A video covering the basics of operating systems, looking into the different managers (Process, File, Device, Memory): see Operating systems 6 link.

Students should understand that virtual memory uses secondary storage (such as the hard disk) as an extension of physical memory (RAM). Paging using a paging table is the process whereby data is moved to and from virtual memory when needed. 

Segmentation allows programs to be broken up into smaller address spaces; each can have its own type of protection and can be shared amongst other processes. 

See Memory management 1 and 2.

Students can also read the article within the Memory management 3 link about virtual memory in more practical terms.

You could start a class discussion about students’ experiences with memory in computers and smartphones, asking, for instance, how much memory is in a Smartphone compared to a desktop computer or laptop, whether they have ever upgraded the memory, what are the memory requirements for different operating systems and games, etc. Students could also research graphics cards and how this type of memory is different from other types of memory.

Interrupts are useful in computers because, rather than continually polling the inputs for changes, as soon as an event (e.g. a button being pressed) happens, the CPU interrupts what it is currently doing and takes a snapshot of all the registers in the CPU at that point in time so that it can return to that state when it has finished dealing with the interrupt. The process that happens as a result of the interrupt is called the Interrupt Service Routine (ISR)

The fetch-decode-execute cycle is a topic that is covered in specification content 1.1.1b so it would make sense to refer back to any prior teaching you have done on that or teach both parts together.

Interrupts 1 and 2 contain some information as a refresher about the fetch-decode-execute cycle if students need it.

Scheduling in a computer is where processes are given access to system resources e.g. processor time which enables multitasking.

Round robin allocates a fixed time per process and then cycles through them until they are done.

First come first served is the simplest as it just puts the actions in a queue as and when they arrive.

Multi level feedback queues categorise processes into their own queues, which have their own priorities. Each queue may have its own prioritisation algorithm. For instance, user and system processes may have their own queues.

Shortest job first is where the scheduler prioritises smaller jobs first to get them out of the way.

Shortest remaining time is similar to shortest job first except that it is pre-emptive (it interrupts the current processing rather than queuing it to be next). See Scheduling 1 and 2.

A simple and fun activity to show how deadlock can occur is within the Scheduling 3 link. Another activity which deals with different types of scheduling can also be found on page 13 of the document in Scheduling 3.

There are different types of operating system. 

A distributed operating system (OS) is a collection of independent networked nodes. Each node may have its own hardware associated with it, and there will be some sort of system management software that brings all the interconnected systems together and co-ordinates individual and collaborative activity on the different nodes.

Embedded operating systems are those that have a dedicated function and are part of (or can be part of ) a larger device. They are generally lower power consumption, low cost and use a limited amount of hardware resources which means that they need to be interfaced with in a more bespoke manner than commonplace OS systems. An example of an embedded operating system would be embedded Linux on the Raspberry Pi.

Multi-user operating systems allow many different users to take advantage of the computer’s resources simultaneously. Multiuser operating systems share processor time. Unix is an example of a multi-user OS.

Multi-tasking operating systems are those that allow you to have many different tasks happening at once, and so this is our standard modern operating system. However, some tasks such as complex scientific/bank calculations can require much more processing power. In this case, supercomputers are used but because they cost a lot of money, instead of being single-user they are designed as multi-user systems so that many users can send tasks to them and share the resources.

Real-time operating systems (RTOS) are supposed to run under predefined deadlines and so can be classed as time critical. For instance, on an aeroplane when the pilot wants something to happen, it should do so straight away. One very important thing to remember about RTOS systems is that “the right answer too late is wrong”, since calculations for movements of a robot, for example, that arrive too late may no longer be valid.

See Operating systems 7 and 8.

BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. It is firmware that is designed to run when the PC is first switched on. It is responsible for detecting, initialising and testing the hardware components, as well as booting the operating system: see Bios 1 and 2 links.

Bios 3 link is a website which contains some BIOS simulators that can be explored by students to understand what they do.

This 'howstuffworks' article (see Bios 4 link) gives a good overview of BIOS in more practical terms.

When interfacing a piece of physical hardware to a computer, sometimes you may need to install a driver, although these days if you have a more common piece of hardware then the likelihood is that your driver may already be included in the operating system. See Device drivers 1 and 2.

Students should investigate what sort of devices drivers are used for and why they are needed. Have they ever had to install a driver? What is a HID device? How do you think the introduction of the internet and USB (as opposed to parallel and serial ports) has made drivers less annoying? (i.e. updates can be more automatic, you can’t lose the disk, fewer different cables to worry about, you usually have more than 1 USB, whereas there was usually only 1 parallel port).

A virtual machine is an operating system that emulates dedicated hardware. The user has the same experience on the virtual machine as they do on a dedicated machine. This enables the user to choose which operating system they would like to use. It saves cost by reducing the need for separate hardware. See Virtual machines 1 link.

Students could watch the demo, in Virtual machines 2 link, of a virtual machine being used and could discuss why someone would want to do this.

Also, when using a virtual operating system, you can have virtual device drivers that fool the operating system into thinking that it is directly communicating with a certain piece of hardware, but in actuality it is going through some function calls to the host operating system. See Virtual machines 3.