Operating System Question Bank

1. Explain the layered structure of an operating system by giving typical operations and the objects that are operated in each layer. 2. What is multiprogramming? State objective of multiprogramming. Enlist and explain in brief various multiprogrammed operating system. 3. Define a file system. What are various components of a file system? State and explain commonly used operations on file. 4. Draw and explain Layered File System. 5. Explain advantages and disadvantages of following file allocation methods:i) Contiguous Allocation ii) Linked Allocation iii) Indexed Allocation 6. What is disk scheduling? Explain the following types of disk scheduling by giving an example:i) SSTF Scheduling ii) C-SCAN Scheduling 7. Explain the concept of Process. Draw a process transition diagram and explain the various process states. 8. State and explain various scheduling criteria. Explain the following scheduling algorithms by giving an example: i) Shortest Job First Scheduling ii) Priority scheduling 9. Explain threads. Differentiate between heavyweight and lightweight processes. 10. What is meant by Process Control Block? Draw and explain different fields of PCB. Explain Context Switch by giving an example. 11. State and explain various memory management techniques. 12. What are the advantages of OS portability from the point of view of i) Component Manufacturer ii) Independent Software vendors iii) Programmers iv) Users ? 13. Discuss the main difficulties in writing an OS for a real time environment. 14. Explain Distributed System. 15. Explain various methods for disk allocation. 16. What are the advantages and disadvantages of indexed allocation scheme? 17. Suppose the head of moving-head disk with 200 tracks, numbered 0 to 199 is currently serving a request at track 143 and has just finished a request at track 125. if the queue of requests is kept in the FIFO order 86, 147, 91, 177, 94, 150, 100, 175, 130 What is total head movement to satisfy these request for the following disk scheduling algorithms? i) FCFS ii) SSTF iii) C-SCAN

18. Which algorithm will be used for CPU scheduling in: i) Batch OS ii) Interactive OS iv) Real time OS? Why? 19. State whether following are true or false with justification: i) Multitasking is a kind of multiprogramming. ii) Multi-user system does not imply multiprogramming. iii) Response times are more predictable in preemptive system than in nonpreemptive system. 20. Assume that following jobs have arrived in the order 1,2,3,4 and 5: Job Arrival Time Burst Time Priority 1 0 15 2 2 2 3 1 3 5 5 5 4 6 8 4 5 7 12 3 Give Gantt chart and calculate Avg. Turnaround Time and Waiting Time for: i) FCFS ii) SRTF and Preemptive priority algorithm 21. Define the essential properties of following OS with its advantages and disadvantages. i) Distributed ii) Real Time iii) Time sharing 22. What is the purpose of Command line interpreter? Why is it usually separated from kernel? 23. What is the purpose of system call? 24. What are the differences between user level threads and kernel level threads? Under what circumstances one is better than other? 25. Consider the following set of process with the length of CPU burst time in milliseconds:Process Burst Time Priority P1 7 3 P2 9 2 P3 2 1 P4 1 4 P5 3 5 The processes are assumed to have arrived in the order P1, P2, P3, P4, P5 and all at time 0. a) Draw Gantt chart, illustrating the execution of these processes using FCFS, SJF, preemptive priority and RR (quantum = 1) scheduling. b) What is turn around time of each process for each of the following scheduling algorithm in Part A? c) What is the waiting time for each process for each of the scheduling algorithms in Part A?

d) Which of the schedule in Part A, results in the minimal average waiting time(overall process)? 26. Explain the following:a) Disk Caching b) Sector queuing 27. What are different space allocation strategies? 28. Describe the difference between following:i) Symmetric and A-symmetric Multiprocessing ii)Time sharing and real time OS 29. What problems could occur of system allowed a file system to be mounted simultaneously at more than one location? 30.One of the drawbacks of early OS was that users lost the ability to interact with their jobs 31. Differentiate between Process and threads. 32. A hard disk has 63 sectors per tracks, 10 platters each with 2 recording surfaces and 1000 cylinders. The address of a sector is given as a triple <c,h,s> where c is the cylinder number ,h is the surface number and s is the sector number. Thus 0th sector is addressed as <0,0,0>, the 1st sector is addressed as <0,0,1> and so on. Calculate the address of 1050th sector. 33. A hard disk has 63 sectors per tracks, 10 platters each with 2 recording surfaces and 1000 cylinders. The address of a sector is given as a triple <c,h,s> where c is the cylinder number ,h is the surface number and s is the sector number. Thus 0th sector is addressed as <0,0,0>, the 1st sector is addressed as <0,0,1> and so on. Calculate the sector number whose address is <400, 16, 29>. 34. What are the services provided by OS? 35. What do you mean by Zombie state of a process? 36. Give difference between Multilevel and Multilevel feedback queue. 37. Write a program for creation of child process. 38. What is blocked suspended and ready suspended state of a process? 39. What are privileged instructions? Which of the following instructions are privileged? i) Set the value of timer ii) Read the clock iii) Clear the memory iv) Turn off interrupts v) Switch from user to monitor mode 40. Compare Linked and Indexed allocation. 41. Describe the semaphore. How the semaphores help in the process synchronization? 42. Describe resource allocation graph.

43. What are monitors?

44.Consider a system consisting of m resources of the same type being shared by n processes only one at a time. Show that the system is deadlock free if the following condition hold: i) The maximum need of each process is between 1 and m resources. ii) The sum of all maximum needs is less than m + n.

45.Consider the following snapshot of a system Allocation A B C D 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 0 1 3 5 4 0 6 3 2 0 0 1 4 Max A B C 0 0 1 1 7 5 2 3 5 0 6 5 0 6 5 Available A B C D 1 5 2 0

P0 P1 P2 P3 P4

D 2 0 6 2 6

Answer the following question using the bankers algorithm: i) What is the content of matrix Need? ii) Is the System in a safe state? iii) If a request from process P1 arrives for (0, 4, 2, 0) can the request be granted immediately? 46. Compare the following main memory organization schemes : contiguous memory allocation, pure segmentation, and pure paging with respect to the following issues: a) External fragmentation b) Internal fragmentation c) Ability to share code across processes.

47.What is the purpose of paging the page tables? 48.Consider the following page reference string 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 for a memory with three frames. How many page fault would occur for following replacement algorithm. i) LRU replacement ii) FIFO replacement iii) Optimal replacement. 49.What is thrashing? How it can be prevented? 50.What advantages do threads have over multiple processes? What major disadvantages do they have?

51.Explain differences betweeniii) Logical and physical address. iv) Internal and external fragmentation. 52.Define critical section. What are the requirements to solve critical-section problem? 53.Write an algorithm to implement a semaphore using:v) The Swap instruction vi) The Test and set instruction. 54.What is the race condition? 55.Consider the following page reference string A,B,C,D,B,A,E,F,A,B,C,G,F,C,F. How many page faults would occur for the following page replacement algorithm assuming three and four frames? Remember all frames are initially empty: vii) FIFO viii) Optimal ix) LRU 56.Write short note on x) Beladys Anomaly xi) Thrashing xii) Locality of references 57.How address calculation is done in segmentation? 58.Give memory partition of 100K,500K,200K,300K and 600K(in order).How would each of the first fit, best fit and worst fit algorithm place process of 212k,417k,112k,and 426k(in order)? Which algorithm makes the most efficient use of memory?

59.State and explain the necessary condition that lead to deadlock situation. 60.What is purpose of resource allocation graph? 61.Explain the combined approach to deadlock handling. 62.Why is it difficult to protect a system in which users are allowed to do their own I/O?

63.Explain how relocation helps for the protection of the data.

64.Explain Access-list and access matrix. 65.What is meant by semaphore? What are the drawbacks of semaphore? 66.Consider the following page reference string 4, 3, 2, 1, 4, 3, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5 Assume page framer =3, pure demand paging. How many page faults would occur for i) FIFO ii) LRU iii) Optimal algorithm. 67.When do page fault occurs? Describe the action taken by O.S. when page fault occurs. 68.Explain single contiguous memory management technique with advantage and disadvantages. 69.Explain relocatable partioned memory management technique with example. 70.What is deadlock? What are the necessary conditions for deadlock? 71.Explain the working of bankers algorithm for deadlock avoidance with suitable examples. 72.What are the main characteristics of capability lists and access lists? 73.Explain cryptography in access control techniques.