- Advantages of layered operating systems
One of the major advantages of layered operating systems is that they are decomposable, and hence affects the separation of concerns and the different abstraction levels. Furthermore, a layered operating system allows for good maintenance, whereby you will be able to make changed without affecting the layer interfaces.
- Disadvantages of layered operating systems
A major disadvantage, however, is that is can be difficult to precisely assign the functions to the right, and the appropriate, layers. Moreover, given that there are too many layers, performance of the system can be degraded quite massively making the computer run at a speed that is less than desirable.
When it comes to academic questions like this, you are going to need to refer to sources that are related to your area of academia. This means for a question relating to an IT course like this you are going to need to look at the sources you were provided in the first place to be able to answer the question. Answering the question using information obtained over the Internet is possible, however, the answer may not be up to the standards that your teachers require from you. The answer that you write will need to reflect the information that you have been provided and taught in your place of study, and using the Internet may not be able to do that. Instead it may have you writing an answer that may be somewhat credible but not completely relevant for your studies.
If you still have trouble when you look through your textbooks then you need to speak to your teacher as well. Your teacher will provide an insight into how the question needs to be answered and what you need to do to do it well.