APPARATUS AND METHOD OF SUPPORTING PLURALITY OF OPERATING SYSTEMS

• US 20100037243A1
• Filed: 05/21/2009
• Published: 02/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Lee, Sung-mih, MO, Sang-dok, Sur, Sang-bum
• Granted Patent: US 9,311,125 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/328
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45566 Nested virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45587 Isolation or security of virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45545 Guest-host, i.e. hypervisor is an application program itself, e.g. VirtualBox
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

An apparatus is provided for supporting a plurality of operating systems by single hardware, wherein the plurality of operating systems include a server operating system to provide an integrated user interfaces for applications running on the plurality of operating systems, and at least one client operating system to provide a user interface for applications running on the client operating system through the server operating system under the control of the server operating system.

Claims

1. An apparatus for supporting a plurality of operating systems by single hardware, wherein the plurality of operating systems comprises:

a server operating system to provide an integrated user interface for applications running on the plurality of operating systems; and

at least one client operating system to provide a user interface for applications running on the client operating system through the server operating system under the control of the server operating system.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the server operating system provides an integrated graphic user interface for the applications running on the server operating system and the at least one client operating system.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the server operating system provides icons representing individual applications in a window as a unified graphic user interface.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein, where applications are present in a plurality of domains, the server operating system provides information indicating the domain in which each respective application is present, along with a corresponding application icon.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein:

the server operating system comprises an application configuration manager to store and manage information of applications running on the plurality of operating systems, an application registration manager to install the applications, an application runtime manager to control execution of the applications, and a human interface device (HID) manager to control a user interface device, and

the client operating system comprises an application registration manager proxy to install applications on the client operating system under the control of the application registration manager of the server operating system, an application runtime manager proxy to control execution of applications on the client operating system under the control of the application runtime manager of the server operating system, and an HID manager proxy to relay applications on the HID manager and the client operating system by communicating with the HID manager.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein, where a user input signal to request installation of an application is received, the application registration manager of the server operating system selects an operating system in which the application is to be installed, installs the application in the selected operating system, and registers information including an installation path of the application in the application configuration manager.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the application registration manager installs an application which is authenticated in a specific operating system among the plurality of operating systems.

8. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein, where a user input signal to request running an application is received and the requested application is to be run on the client operating system, the application runtime manager of the server operating system requests the application runtime manager proxy to run the requested application, and then receives the result of running the application from the application runtime manager proxy and provides the result to the user.

9. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein, where a user input signal to request change of a foreground application from a current running application to another application is received, the server operating system provides the user with a list of applications currently running on the server operating system and the client operating system and provides the user with the requested application to be executed as the foreground application.

10. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein, where a user input signal to request termination of an application is received,

where the requested application is running on the server operating system, the application runtime manager terminates the execution of the application;

and

where the requested application is running on the client operating system, the application runtime manager requests an application runtime manager proxy of a domain to which the requested application belongs to terminate the application and the application runtime manager updates a list of currently running applications when the application is terminated.

11. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the HID manager sets an application to output sound among applications running on the server operating system and the at least one client operating system.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the server operating system provides an integrated user interface for applications running on the plurality of operating systems based on an inter-domain communication.

13. A method of supporting a plurality of operating systems by single hardware, the method comprising:

providing an integrated user interface in a server operating system for applications to be executed in a plurality of operating systems; and

providing a user interface in at least one client operating system for applications present in the at least one client operating system through the server operating system under the control of the server operating system.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the providing of the integrated user interface in the server operating system comprises providing an integrated graphic user interface for applications to be executed on the server operating system and the at least one client operating system.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the providing of the integrated graphic user interface comprises providing icons representing the respective applications in one window as the integrated graphic user interface.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving by an application registration manager a user input signal to request installation of an application;

selecting by the application registration manager an operating system in which the application is installed by the server operating system;

installing by the application registration manager the application in the selected operating system; and

registering by the application registration manager information including an installation path of the application.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving by an application runtime manager a user input signal to request running of an application;

determining by an application configuration manager the requested application is to run on the client operating system;

requesting by the application runtime manager the client operating system to run the requested application; and

receiving by the application runtime manager a result of running the application from the client operating system and providing the result to the user.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving by a main application a user input signal to request changing of a current foreground application to another application;

providing by the server operating system a list of applications currently running on the server operating system and the client operating system; and

providing a user with an application requested to be run from the list as the foreground application.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein where a user input signal to request termination of an application is received, at least one of:

terminating the application by the server operating system when the requested application is running on the server operating system; and

requesting by the server operating system the client operating system to terminate the application when the requested application is running on the client operating system.

20. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program configured to cause an apparatus for supporting a plurality of operating systems by single hardware to:

provide an integrated user interface in a server operating system for applications to be executed in a plurality of operating systems; and

provide a user interface in at least one client operating system for applications present in the at least one client operating system through the server operating system under the control of the server operating system.