System generation

<h2 id="rationale">Rationale</h2>
<p>A large general-purpose program such as an operating system has to provide support for all variations of <a href="/facts/Central_processing_unit/Jxp1bqMV">Central processing unit</a> (CPU) that it might be run on, for all supported <a href="/facts/Main_memory/wPHKFpdx">main memory</a> sizes, and for all possible configurations of <a href="/facts/Input/output/WQTE8Jas">input/output</a> (I/O) equipment.  No one installation requires all this support, so system generation provides a process for selecting the options and features actually required on any one system.
</p><p>Sysgen produces a system that is most efficient in terms of CPU time, main memory requirements, I/O activity, and/or disk space.  Often these parameters can be traded off, for example to generate a system that requires less memory at the expense of increased disk I/O operations.
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<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/System_Generation_(OS)/pkkrjPjx">System Generation (OS)</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Farlex. "The Free Dictionary". Retrieved June 21, 2013. <a href="http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/system+generation" target="_blank">http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/system+generation</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

System generation open-in-new

System generation