SUMMER 2023

Q.1 (a) Explain any three main functions of an Operating System.

Q.1 (b) Describe the features of a distributed operating system. 04

• Transparency: DOS provides transparency to users and applications, hiding the fact that resources (like
files, printers, or even processes) are distributed across multiple computers. This transparency can include
access, location, migration, and replication transparency.

• Concurrency: It supports concurrent processing across multiple nodes, enabling tasks to be executed
simultaneously on different machines. This feature helps in improving performance and resource utilization.

• Scalability: Distributed systems are scalable, meaning they can easily accommodate a growing number of
users or resources by adding more nodes to the network. This scalability can be horizontal (adding more
nodes) or vertical (upgrading existing nodes).

• Fault Tolerance: DOS is designed to be fault-tolerant, meaning it can continue to operate correctly even
if some of its components fail. It achieves this through redundancy, replication, and error detection and
recovery mechanisms.

• Resource Management: It efficiently manages and allocates resources such as CPU time, memory, and
storage across the distributed system. Resource management ensures that resources are utilized optimally
and fairly among users and applications.
• Communication: Communication between nodes in a distributed system is fundamental. DOS provides
mechanisms for inter-process communication (IPC) and networking protocols that enable nodes to exchange
data and coordinate their activities.

• Security: Ensuring the security of data and resources is crucial in a distributed system. DOS includes
mechanisms for authentication, access control, encryption, and secure communication to protect against
unauthorized access and malicious attacks.

• Load Balancing: Distributed operating systems often employ load balancing techniques to evenly
distribute tasks and workload across nodes. This improves performance and prevents any single node from
becoming a bottleneck.

• Heterogeneity: Distributed systems can consist of diverse hardware and software platforms. DOS must
handle differences in hardware architectures, operating systems, and programming languages to ensure
interoperability and seamless operation.

• Global Clock and Synchronization: Maintaining a global sense of time and ensuring synchronization
among distributed components is challenging but necessary for many distributed applications. DOS may
implement algorithms for clock synchronization to ensure consistency.

Q.1 (c) What is a process? Explain about various fields of process control block. 07
Q.2 (a) Define multi-threading? Explain its benefits. 03

Benefits of multithreading:
• Responsiveness – Multithreading in an interactive application may allow a program to continue
running even if a part of it is blocked or is performing a lengthy operation, thereby increasing
responsiveness to the user.
• Minimized system resource usage – Threads have a minimal influence on the system’s resources. The
overhead of creating, maintaining, and managing threads is lower than a general process.
• Enhanced Concurrency – Multithreading can enhance the concurrency of a multi-CPU machine. This
is because the multithreading allows every thread to be executed in parallel on a distinct processor.
• Reduced Context Switching Time – The threads minimize the context switching time as in Thread
Context Switching, the virtual memory space remains the same.

Q.2 (b) Describe the differences among long-term scheduling. short-term, and medium- term
scheduling.
Q.2 c) What is semaphore? Explain its implementation as wait and signal for providing process
synchronization? 07
Q.3 (a) What are the advantages of inter-process communication? How communication takes place in
a shared-memory environment?

Q.3 (b) What are the conditions under which a deadlock situation may arise?
Q.3 (c) Explain the readers and writers problem.

OR
Q.3 (a) What is race condition?

Q.3 (b) What are the methods for handling deadlocks?

Q.3 (c) Explain the dining-philosophers problem.

Q.4 (a) Explain the difference between logical and physical addresses.