Basics

Potpourri

File Systems

Scheduling

Synchronization

and Threads

Memory Management

Define Kernel

Define program

Which normally costs more time, to seek the disk head to a block or to read that block once seeked? 

Describe FIFO

Deadlock:  good or bad?

Who decides to use inverted or normal page tables? 

Many times real time operating systems do not have virtual memory.  Why might that be

Name the two founders of Apple

Why do we run disk defragmentors? What advantage do we get doing so? 

List two things done on EVERY system call.

Define thread

Suppose that there were no protected memory locations, but the O.S. was stored in ROM. Is this good enough?

How does Regie Miller define a shell?

Who invented Unix?

Can you explain how both the EXT2 and VFAT file systems work?

Give one reason why the time quantum for a scheduler should be long.

Name a way to prevent deadlock.

Which page replacement algorithm works best, FIFO or LRU?

Why do we want to overlap computation and I/O?

How did Alan Turing die?

How does a hard link differ from a soft link, and which is closest to a Windows "shortcut"?

Give one reason why the time quantum for a scheduler should be long.

Name another.

Do applications reference memory using physical addresses or virtual addresses?

Which takes longer, a disk seek or a CPU context switch? 

Name THREE companies that make CPUs.

Assume I have a RAID 5 setup, with 8 disks, and one of them fails.  Does this slow read operations?  If so, why?

Which scheduling strategy is provably optimal at reducing wait times?

Name one thing that must be done in a context switch between processes that can be skipped between threads

Which requires more hardware support, normal page tables or inverted page tables?

Should reading the clock timer be a privileged instruction?

Which came first, the IBM PC or the Mac?

The Pacer central office has 10 disks, each holding 10G.  Using RAID level 5, how much can the RAID system hold?

Suppose an O.S. had multiple CPU, but all interrupts were delivered to just one CPU. How would this work?

Do threads within a process share the same stack

For a machine with a HUGE virtual address space and a small RAM, which type of page table works best?

Should changing the CMOS be a privileged instruction?

Who invented the first, biggest, and best mechanical computer?

Suppose I want to access a file on a computer managed by a micro kernel.  What would I do to access the file?

For shortest process first, what are two ways to determine the shortest process

Which is faster, fork() or pthread_create()?

Which is faster, normal page tables or inverted page tables?