Computer system, method, and medium for switching operating system

• US 20050273663A1
• Filed: 05/18/2005
• Published: 12/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung Group)
• Inventors: Yoon, Sung-min
• Granted Patent: US 7,886,136 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/441 Multiboot arrangements, i.e. selecting an operating system to be loaded
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4418 Suspend and resume; Hibernate and awake

Abstract

An operating system switching method in a computer system having at least two operating systems is provided. The operating system switching method may include receiving a command of switching a first operating system that is currently running to a second operating system, causing the computer system to make a transition to a low-power sleeping state in response to the command, and booting the computer system using the second operating system in the transitioned state.

Claims

1. An operating system switching method in a computer system having at least two operating systems, the operating system switching method comprising:

receiving a command of switching a first operating system that is currently running to a second operating system;

causing the computer system to make a transition to a low-power sleeping state in response to the command; and

booting the computer system using the second operating system.

2. The operating system switching method of claim 1, wherein the receiving of the command comprises receiving the command using an inputting unit provided in the computer system.

3. The operating system switching method of claim 1, wherein the inputting unit includes a user inputting device for switching an operating system.

4. The operating system switching method of claim 2, wherein the inputting unit includes a wireless signal receiving module.

5. The operating system switching method of claim 2, wherein the inputting unit includes a network interface module.

6. The operating system switching method of claim 1, wherein the low-power sleeping state includes an S3 power management state according to the advance configuration and power interface (ACPI) specification.

7. The operating system switching method of claim 1, wherein:

the causing of the computer system to make a transition to a low-power sleeping state comprises setting power management state information indicating the transitioned low-power sleeping state and operating system switching information indicating booting of the computer system using the second operating system; and

the booting of the computer system using the second operating system comprises booting the computer system using the second operating system according to the power management state information and the operating system switching information.

8. The operating system switching method of claim 1, wherein the causing of the computer system to make a transition to a low-power sleeping state comprises storing information on an environment of the first operating system when receiving the command in a predetermined storage area.

9. The operating system switching method of claim 8, wherein the information includes system resource information, program information, or data information.

10. The operating system switching method of claim 8, wherein the information is stored in the predetermined storage area in an S4 power management state according to the ACPI specification.

11. The operating system switching method of claim 1, wherein the booting of the computer system using the second operating system comprises extracting information on the environment of the operating system from the predetermined storage area and providing an environment of the second operating system using the extracted information, the extracted information including information on the environment of the second operating system that operates before switching the second operating system to the first operating system.

12. The operating system switching method of claim 11, wherein the information is stored in the predetermined storage area in an S4 power management state according to the ACPI specification.

13. A computer system having at least two operating systems, the computer system comprising:

a receiving module receiving a command of switching a first operating system that is currently running to a second operating system;

a state controlling module causing the computer system to make a transition to a low-power sleeping state in response to the command; and

an operating system switching module booting the computer system using the second operating system.

14. The computer system of claim 13, wherein the low-power sleeping state includes an S3 power management state according to the advance configuration and power interface (ACPI) specification.

15. The computer system of claim 13, wherein:

the state controlling module transmits power management state information indicating the transitioned low-power sleeping state and operating system operating system switching information indicating booting of the computer system using the second operating system to the operating system switching module; and

the operating system switching module boots the computer system using the second operating system according to the power management state information and the operating system switching information.

16. The computer system of claim 13, wherein the operating system switching module performs operating system switching including a bios ROM.

17. The computer system of claim 13, further comprising a storage module storing information on the environment of the second operating system, in which the computer system was being operated before being switched to the first operating system, wherein the operating system switching module extracts the information from the storage module and performs operating system switching using the extracted information for providing the environment of the second operating system.

18. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the storage module stores the information in an S4 power management state according to the ACPI specification.

22. The operating system switching method of claim 15, wherein the booting of the first system to the second system comprises:

receiving a command of switching the first operating system to the second operating system;

causing the computer system to make a transition to the low-power sleeping state and supplying power to allow the computer to be in a low-power sleeping state in response to the command; and

changing the first operating system to the second operating system..

23. The operating system switching method of claim 22, wherein the changing of first operating system to the second operating system comprises extracting information on an environment of the second operating system from a predetermined storage area and providing the environment of the second operating system using the extracted information, the extracted information including information on the environment of the second operating system, in which the computer system was being operated before being switched to the first operating system.

19. An operating system switching method in a computer system having at least two operating systems, the operating system switching method comprising:

changing a first operating system that is currently running to a second operating system for providing multimedia contents to a user;

controlling at least two hardware states included in the computer system according to types of the multimedia contents; and

providing the multimedia contents to the user in the controlled hardware states.

20. The operating system switching method of claim 19, wherein the hardware states include a state of a CPU clock speed.

21. The operating system switching method of claim 19, wherein the hardware states include a power on/off state of an optical disc drive, a power on/off state of a hard disc drive, and a state of brightness of a display screen, and a power on/off state of a wireless LAN module.

24. An operating system switching method in a computer system having at least two operating systems, the operating system switching method comprising:

changing a first operating system that is currently running to a second operating system for providing multimedia contents to a user;

providing a user interface for providing a list of the multimedia contents to the user;

causing the computer system to be set to a low-power state mode so as to execute the multimedia contents selected by the user from the list; and

executing the selected multimedia contents in the low-power state mode.

25. The operating system switching method of claim 24, wherein the changing the first operating system to the second operating system comprises:

receiving a command of switching the first operating system to the second operating system;

causing the computer system to make a transition to the low-power sleeping state and supplying power to allow the computer system to be in a low-power sleeping state in response to the command; and

booting the first operating system to the second operating system.

26. The operating system switching method of claim 25, wherein the booting the first operating system to the second operating system comprises extracting information on an environment of the second operating system from a predetermined storage area and providing the environment of the second operating system using the extracted information, the extracted information including information on the environment of the second operating system, in which the computer system was being operated before being switched to the first operating system.

27. The operating system switching method of claim 24, wherein the causing the computer system to be set to a low-power state mode comprises:

loading hardware-controlling codes for executing the selected multimedia contents from a bios; and

executing the loaded controlling codes to set the computer system to the low-power state mode.

28. The operating system switching method of claim 24, wherein the user interface includes an area from which the user can select the multimedia contents classified according to categories.

29. At least one computer readable medium storing instructions that control at least one processor to perform a method comprising:

receiving a command of switching a first operating system that is currently running in a computer system to a second operating system;

causing the computer system to make a transition to a low-power sleeping state in response to the command; and

booting the computer system using the second operating system.

30. At least one computer readable medium storing instructions that control at least one processor to perform a method comprising:

booting a first operating system that is currently running to a second operating system for providing multimedia contents to a user;

controlling at least two hardware states included in the computer system according to types of the multimedia contents; and

providing the multimedia contents to the user in the controlled hardware states.

31. At least one computer readable medium storing instructions that control at least one processor to perform a method comprising:

booting a first operating system that is currently running to a second operating system for providing multimedia contents to a user;

providing a user interface for providing a list of the multimedia contents to the user;

causing the computer system to be set to a low-power state mode so as to execute the multimedia contents selected by the user from the list; and

executing the selected multimedia contents in the low-power state mode.