The design and implementation of an operating system to support distributed multimedia applications

TLDR

Support for multimedia applications by general purpose computing platforms has been the subject of considerable research, often using evolutionary strategies that make small changes to existing systems. The study proposes a new OS structure that decouples applications and multiplexes all resources at a low level. The authors design the OS from scratch without backward compatibility constraints, creating a structure that decouples applications and multiplexes all resources. The resulting OS has a novel structure that decouples applications and multiplexes resources, and the authors describe its motivation, design, and implementation on multiple hardware platforms.

Abstract

Support for multimedia applications by general purpose computing platforms has been the subject of considerable research. Much of this work is based on an evolutionary strategy in which small changes to existing systems are made. The approach adopted is to start ab initio with no backward compatibility constraints. This leads to a novel structure for an operating system. The structure aims to decouple applications from one another and to provide multiplexing of all resources, not just the CPU, at a low level. The motivation for this structure, a design based on the structure, and its implementation on a number of hardware platforms is described.