SWITCHING OF OPERATING SYSTEMS

• US 20150012739A1
• Filed: 04/25/2012
• Published: 01/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Yang, Zi-Jiang, Ren, Yi-Qun
• Application Number:
  US14/371,506
• Publication Number:
  US 20150012739A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/545 where tasks reside in different layers, e.g. user- and kernel-space

Abstract

Switching from a first operating system to a second operating system by re-using components that are common to the first operating system and the second operating system. The common components can be for example a kernel, file systems, drivers, protocol stack and the like.

Claims

1. A system that switches a first operating system (OS) of a computing unit, to a second OS, comprising:

a kernel component that is shared between the first OS and the second OS; and

a switching component that switches the computing unit from the first OS to the second OS, based on re-using the kernel component.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the switching component further comprises a restoration component that at least one of saves or restores environmental variables for an OS.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the first operating system and the second operating system are Linux™

based.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the switching component further comprises an initialization component that enhances an init process.

5. The system of claim 2 further comprising a mount point for mounting a root partition of the OS.

6. The system of claim 5 further comprising a file descriptor that locates a root directory of the OS.

7. The system of claim 5 further comprising an inference component that facilitates switching between the first OS and the second OS based on user'"'"'activities.

8. A method of switching between a first operating system and a second operating system comprising:

executing an initialization command for the first operating system;

reusing at least one of;

a kernel;

or a driver;

or a file system that is common between the first operating system and the second operating system, to switch to the second operating system; and

executing an initialization command for the second operating system.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising identifying root directories associated with the first operating system and the second operating system.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising saving environmental variables of the first OS, for use by a run time environment when returning to the first OS.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising duplicating instances of virtual files for mounting in an initial system boot up stage.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising changing a root directory from the first operating system to the second operating system.

13. The method of claim 10 further comprising inferring user activities for switching between user activities.

14. The method of claim 10 further comprising employing a Linux™

based kernel for the re-using act.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium that comprises commands that if executed by a processor in a computing device cause the computing device to:

save environment variables associated with a first OS;

change a root directory from the first OS to a second OS;

execute an initialization command for the second OS; and

switch environment variables to that of the second OS.