Analysis of the Runtime Linux Operating System as a Complex Weighted Network

The structures and behaviors of modern software systems are more and more complicated, thus the modeling of the runtime software systems is difficult. In this paper, we model the runtime Linux operating system (LOS) as a weighted network to investigate the execution process of LOS. The topologies of the weighted LOS network are analyzed and it is found that the weight distribution follows a power-law distribution. For better understanding the execution process of LOS, we explore the manifestations of LOS components. The result shows that the component of process management plays the key role in the execution process of LOS. Moreover, an assessment of the reliability of LOS is proposed by considering the execution status of LOS as a discrete time Markov chain. The reliabilities of 10 LOS versions ranging from versions 3.15 to 4.4 are compared and the result shows that the reliability declines. Our work may shed a light on the testing and monitoring processes of software systems.