Operating system chapter 2&3 review questions

1. List and briefly define the four main elements of a computer.

2. Define the two main categories of processor registers.
3. What is an interrupt?
4. How are multiple interrupts dealt with?
5. What characteristics distinguish the various elements of a memory hierarchy?
6. What is cache memory?
7. What is the difference between a multiprocessor and a multicore system?
8. Original versions of Apple’s mobile iOS operating system provided no means of concurrent
9. processing. Discuss three major complications that
10. concurrent processing adds to an operating system.
11. What common events lead to the creation of a process?
12. briefly define each state ?
13. What does it mean to preempt a process?
14. What is swapping and what is its purpose?
15. List three general categories of information in a process control block.
16. Why are two modes (user and kernel) needed?
17. What are the steps performed by an OS to create a new process?
18. What is the difference between an interrupt and a trap?
19. Give three examples of an interrupt.
20. Some computer systems provide multiple register sets. Describe what happens when a context
switch occurs if the new context is already loaded into one of the register sets. What happens
if the new context is in memory rather than in a register set and all the register sets are in use?
21. When a process creates a newprocess using the fork() operation, which of the following states
is shared between the parent process and the child process?
a. Stack
b. Heap
c. Shared memory segments
22. Describe the actions taken by a kernel to context-switch between processes.
23. Explain the role of the init (or systemd) process on UNIX and Linux systems in regard to
process termination.
24.
25. Give an example of a situation inwhich ordinary pipes are more suitable than named pipes and
an example of a situation in which named pipes are more suitable than ordinary pipes.
26. What are the benefits and the disadvantages of each of the following? Consider both the
system level and the programmer level.
a. Synchronous and asynchronous communication
b. Automatic and explicit buffering
c. Send by copy and send by reference
d. Fixed-sized and variable-sized messages
27. What is the purpose of system calls?
28. What is the purpose of the command interpreter? Why is it usually separate from the kernel?
29. What system calls have to be executed by a command interpreter or shell in order to start a
new process on a UNIX system?
30. What is the purpose of system programs?
31. What is the main advantage of the layered
32. List five services provided by an operating system, and explain how each creates convenience
for users. In which cases would it be impossible for user-level programs to provide these
services? Explain your answer.
33. What are the two models of interprocess communication? What are the strengths and
weaknesses of the two approaches?
34. Why is the separation of mechanism and policy desirable?
35. How are iOS and Android similar? How are they different?
36. Explain why Java programs running on Android systems do not use the standard Java API and
virtual machine.