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System LAB VIVA Questions and Answers

300+ TOP Operating System

LAB VIVA Questions and
Answers
Operating System VIVA Questions :-
1.What is an operating system?
An operating system is a program that acts as an
intermediary between the user and the computer
hardware. The purpose of an OS is to provide a convenient
environment in which user can execute programs in a
convenient and efficient manner.It is a resource allocator
responsible for allocating system resources and a control
program which controls the operation of the computer
h/w.

2.What are the various components of a

computer system?

1. The hardware
2. The operating system
3. The application programs
4. The users.

3.What is purpose of different operating

systems?
The machine Purpose Workstation individual usability
&Resources utilization Mainframe Optimize utilization of
hardware PC Support complex games, business
application Hand held PCs Easy interface & min. power
consumption

4.What are the different operating systems?

1. Batched operating systems
2. Multi-programmed operating systems
3. timesharing operating systems
4. Distributed operating systems
5. Real-time operating systems

6.What is a boot-strap program?

Bootstrapping is a technique by which a simple computer
program activates a more complicated system of
programs. It comes from an old expression “to pull oneself
up by one’s bootstraps.”

7.What is BIOS?
A BIOS is software that is put on computers. This allows
the user to configure the input and output of a computer.
A BIOS is also known as firmware.

8.Explain the concept of the batched operating

systems?
In batched operating system the users gives their jobs to
the operator who sorts the programs according to their
requirements and executes them. This is time consuming
but makes the CPU busy all the time.
9.Explain the concept of the multi-programmed
operating systems?
A multi-programmed operating systems can execute a
number of programs concurrently. The operating system
fetches a group of programs from the job-pool in the
secondary storage which contains all the programs to be
executed, and places them in the main memory. This
process is called job scheduling. Then it chooses a
program from the ready queue and gives them to CPU to
execute. When a executing program needs some I/O
operation then the operating system fetches another
program and hands it to the CPU for execution, thus
keeping the CPU busy all the time.

10.Explain the concept of the time sharing

operating systems?
It is a logical extension of the multi-programmed OS
where user can interact with the program. The CPU
executes multiple jobs by switching among them, but the
switches occur so frequently that the user feels as if the
operating system is running only his program.

11.Explain the concept of the multi-processor

systems or parallel systems?
They contain a no. of processors to increase the speed of
execution, and reliability, and economy. They are of two
types:
1. Symmetric multiprocessing
2. Asymmetric multiprocessing
In Symmetric multi processing each processor run an
identical copy of the OS, and these copies communicate
with each other as and when needed.But in Asymmetric
multiprocessing each processor is assigned a specific task.
12.Explain the concept of the Distributed
systems?
Distributed systems work in a network. They can share the
network resources,communicate with each other

13.Explain the concept of Real-time operating

systems?
A real time operating system is used when rigid time
requirement have been placed on the operation of a
processor or the flow of the data; thus, it is often used as a
control device in a dedicated application. Here the sensors
bring data to the computer. The computer must analyze
the data and possibly adjust controls to
modify the sensor input.
They are of two types:
1. Hard real time OS
2. Soft real time OS
Hard-real-time OS has well-defined fixed time
constraints. But soft real time operating systems have less
stringent timing constraints.

14.Define MULTICS?
MULTICS (Multiplexed information and computing
services) operating system was developed from 1965-1970
at Massachusetts institute of technology as a computing
utility. Many of the ideas used in MULTICS were
subsequently used in UNIX.

15.What is SCSI?
Small computer systems interface.

16.What is a sector?
Smallest addressable portion of a disk.
17.What is cache-coherency?
In a multiprocessor system there exist several caches each
may containing a copy of same variable A. Then a change
in one cache should immediately be reflected in all other
caches this process of maintaining the same value of a
data in all the caches s called cache-coherency.

18.What are residence monitors?

Early operating systems were called residence monitors.

19.What is dual-mode operation?

In order to protect the operating systems and the system
programs from the malfunctioning programs the two
mode operations were evolved:
1. System mode.
2. User mode.
Here the user programs cannot directly interact with the
system resources, instead they request the operating
system which checks the request and does the required
task for the user programs-DOS was written for / intel
8088 and has no dual-mode. Pentium provides dual-
mode operation.

20.What are the operating system components?

1. Process management
2. Main memory management
3. File management
4. I/O system management
5. Secondary storage management
6. Networking
7. Protection system
8. Command interpreter system
21.What are operating system services?
1. Program execution
2. I/O operations
3. File system manipulation
4. Communication
5. Error detection
6. Resource allocation
7. Accounting
8. Protection

22.What are system calls?

System calls provide the interface between a process and
the operating system. System calls for modern Microsoft
windows platforms are part of the win32 API, which is
available for all the compilers written for Microsoft
windows.

23.What is a layered approach and what is its

advantage?

Layered approach is a step towards modularizing of the

system, in which the operating system is broken up into a
number of layers (or levels), each built on top of lower
layer. The bottom layer is the hard ware and the top most
is the user interface.The main advantage of the layered
approach is modularity. The layers are
selected such that each uses the functions (operations)
and services of only lower layer. This approach simplifies
the debugging and system verification.

24.What is micro kernel approach and site its

advantages?
Micro kernel approach is a step towards modularizing the
operating system where all nonessential components from
the kernel are removed and implemented as system and
user level program, making the kernel smaller.The
benefits of the micro kernel approach include the ease of
extending the operating system. All new services are
added to the user space and consequently do not require
modification of the kernel. And as kernel is smaller it is
easier to upgrade it. Also this approach provides more
security and reliability since most services are running as
user processes rather than kernel’s keeping the kernel
intact.

25.What are a virtual machines and site their

advantages?

It is the concept by which an operating system can create

an illusion that a process has its own processor with its
own (virtual) memory.
The operating system implements virtual machine concept
by using CPU scheduling and virtual memory.

1. The basic advantage is it provides robust level of

security as each virtual machine is isolated from all other
VM. Hence the system resources are completely protected.
2. Another advantage is that system development can be
done without disrupting normal operation. System
programmers are given their own virtual machine, and as
system development is done on the virtual machine
instead of on the actual
physical machine.
3. Another advantage of the virtual machine is it solves the
compatibility problem.
EX: Java supplied by Sun micro system provides a
specification for java virtual machine.

26.What is a process?
A program in execution is called a process. Or it may also
be called a unit of work. A process needs some system
resources as CPU time, memory, files, and i/o devices to
accomplish the task. Each process is represented in the
operating system by a process control block or task control
block (PCB).Processes are of two types:
1. Operating system processes
2. User processes

27.What are the states of a process?

1. New
2. Running
3. Waiting
4. Ready
5. Terminated

28.What are various scheduling queues?

1. Job queue
2. Ready queue
3. Device queue

29.What is a job queue?

When a process enters the system it is placed in the job
queue.

30.What is a ready queue?

The processes that are residing in the main memory and
are ready and waiting to execute are kept on a list called
the ready queue.
31.What is a device queue?
A list of processes waiting for a particular I/O device is
called device queue.

32.What is a long term scheduler & short term

schedulers?
Long term schedulers are the job schedulers that select
processes from the job queue and load them into memory
for execution. The short term schedulers are the CPU
schedulers that select a process form the ready queue and
allocate the CPU to one of them.

33.What is context switching?

Transferring the control from one process to other process
requires saving the state of the old process and loading the
saved state for new process. This task is known as context
switching.

34.What are the disadvantages of context

switching?
Time taken for switching from one process to other is pure
over head. Because the system does no useful work while
switching. So one of the solutions is to go for threading
when ever possible.

35.What are co-operating processes?

The processes which share system resources as data
among each other. Also the processes can communicate
with each other via interprocess communication facility
generally used in distributed systems. The best example is
chat program used on the www.

36.What is a thread?
A thread is a program line under execution. Thread
sometimes called a light-weight process, is a basic unit of
CPU utilization; it comprises a thread id, a program
counter, a register set, and a stack.

37.What are the benefits of multithreaded

programming?
1. Responsiveness (needn’t to wait for a lengthy process)
2. Resources sharing
3. Economy (Context switching between threads is easy)
4. Utilization of multiprocessor architectures (perfect
utilization of the multiple processors).

38.What are types of threads?

1. User thread
2. Kernel thread
User threads are easy to create and use but the
disadvantage is that if they perform a blocking system
calls the kernel is engaged completely to the single user
thread blocking other processes. They are created in user
space.Kernel threads are supported directly by the
operating system. They are slower to create and manage.
Most of the OS like Windows NT, Windows 2000,
Solaris2, BeOS, and Tru64 Unix support kernel threading.

39.Which category the java thread do fall in?

Java threads are created and managed by the java virtual
machine, they do not easily fall under the category of
either user or kernel thread……

40.What are multithreading models?

Many OS provide both kernel threading and user
threading. They are called multithreading models. They
are of three types:
1. Many-to-one model (many user level thread and one
kernel thread).
2. One-to-one model
3. Many-to –many
In the first model only one user can access the kernel
thread by not allowing multi-processing. Example: Green
threads of Solaris.The second model allows multiple
threads to run on parallel processing systems. Creating
user thread needs to create corresponding kernel thread
(disadvantage).Example: Windows NT, Windows 2000,
OS/2.The third model allows the user to create as many
threads as necessary and the corresponding kernel threads
can run in parallel on a multiprocessor.
Example: Solaris2, IRIX, HP-UX, and Tru64 Unix.

41.What is a P-thread?
P-thread refers to the POSIX standard (IEEE 1003.1c)
defining an API for thread creation and synchronization.
This is a specification for thread behavior, not an
implementation. The windows OS have generally not
supported the P-threads.

42.What are java threads?

Java is one of the small number of languages that support
at the language level for the creation and management of
threads. However, because threads are managed by the
java virtual machine (JVM), not by a user-level library or
kernel, it is difficult to classify Java threads as either user-
or kernel-level.

43.What is process synchronization?

A situation, where several processes access and
manipulate the same data concurrently and the outcome
of the execution depends on the particular order in which
the access takes place, is called race condition. To guard
against the race condition we need to ensure that only one
process at a time can be manipulating
the same data. The technique we use for this is called
process synchronization.

44.What is critical section problem?

Critical section is the code segment of a process in which
the process may be changing common variables, updating
tables, writing a file and so on. Only one process is allowed
to go into critical section at any given time (mutually
exclusive).The critical section problem is to design a
protocol that the processes can use to
co-operate. The three basic requirements of critical
section are:
1. Mutual exclusion
2. Progress
3. bounded waiting
Bakery algorithm is one of the solutions to CS problem.

45.What is a semaphore?
It is a synchronization tool used to solve complex critical
section problems. A semaphore is an integer variable that,
apart from initialization, is accessed only through two
standard atomic operations: Wait and Signal.

46.What is bounded-buffer problem?

Here we assume that a pool consists of n buffers, each
capable of holding one item. The semaphore provides
mutual exclusion for accesses to the buffer pool and is
initialized to the value 1.The empty and full semaphores
count the number of empty and full buffers, respectively.
Empty is initialized to n, and full is initialized to 0.
47.What is readers-writers problem?
Here we divide the processes into two types:
1. Readers (Who want to retrieve the data only)
2. Writers (Who want to retrieve as well as manipulate)
We can provide permission to a number of readers to read
same data at same time.But a writer must be exclusively
allowed to access. There are two solutions to this problem:
1. No reader will be kept waiting unless a writer has
already obtained permission to use the shared object. In
other words, no reader should wait for other readers to
complete simply because a writer is waiting.
2. Once a writer is ready, that writer performs its write as
soon as possible. In other words, if a writer is waiting to
access the object, no new may start reading.

48.What is dining philosophers’ problem?

Consider 5 philosophers who spend their lives thinking

and eating. The philosophers share a common circular
table surrounded by 5 chairs, each belonging to one
philosopher. In the center of the table is a bowl of rice,
and the table is laid with five single chop sticks. When a
philosopher thinks, she doesn’t interact with her
colleagues.
From time to time, a philosopher gets hungry and tries to
pick up two chop sticks that are closest to her .A
philosopher may pick up only one chop stick at a time.
Obviously she can’t pick the stick in some others hand.
When a hungry philosopher has both her chopsticks at the
same time, she eats without releasing her chopsticks.
When she is finished eating, she puts down both of her
chopsticks and start thinking again.
49.What is a deadlock?
Suppose a process request resources; if the resources are
not available at that time the process enters into a wait
state. A waiting process may never again change state,
because the resources they have requested are held by
some other waiting processes. This situation is called
deadlock.

50.What are necessary conditions for dead lock?

1. Mutual exclusion (where at least one resource is non-
sharable)
2. Hold and wait (where a process hold one resource and
waits for other resource)
3. No preemption (where the resources can’t be
preempted)
4. circular wait (where p[i] is waiting for p[j] to release a
resource. i= 1,2,…n
j=if (i!=n) then i+1
else 1 )

OS LAB VIVA Questions ::

51.What is resource allocation graph?

This is the graphical description of deadlocks. This graph

consists of a set of edges E and a set of vertices V. The set
of vertices V is partitioned into two different types of
nodes P={p1,p2,…,pn}, the set consisting of all the
resources in the system, R={r1,r2,…rn}.A directed edge
Pi?Rj is called a request edge; a directed edge Rj?
Pi is called an assignment edge. Pictorially we represent a
process Pi as a circle, and each resource type Rj as
square.Since resource type Rj may have more than one
instance, we represent each such instance as a dot within
the square.When a request is fulfilled the request edge is
transformed into an assignment edge. When a process
releases a resource the assignment edge is deleted. If the
cycle involves a set of resource types, each of which has
only a single instance, then a deadlock has occurred. Each
process involved in the cycle is deadlock.

52.What are deadlock prevention techniques?

1. Mutual exclusion : Some resources such as read

only files shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. They
should be sharable. But some resources such as
printers must be
mutually exclusive.
2. Hold and wait : To avoid this condition we have to
ensure that if a process is requesting for a resource it
should not hold any resources.
3. No preemption : If a process is holding some
resources and requests another resource that cannot
be immediately allocated to it (that is the process
must wait), then all the resources currently being
held are preempted(released autonomously).
4. Circular wait : the way to ensure that this
condition never holds is to impose a total ordering of
all the resource types, and to require that each
process requests resources in an increasing order of
enumeration.

53.What is a safe state and a safe sequence?

A system is in safe state only if there exists a safe

sequence. A sequence of processes is a safe sequence for
the current allocation state if, for each Pi, the resources
that the Pi can still request can be satisfied by the
currently available resources plus the resources held by all
the Pj, with j

54.What are the deadlock avoidance algorithms?

A dead lock avoidance algorithm dynamically examines

the resource-allocation state to ensure that a circular wait
condition can never exist. The resource allocation state is
defined by the number of available and allocated
resources, and the maximum demand of the process.There
are two algorithms:
1. Resource allocation graph algorithm
2. Banker’s algorithm
a. Safety algorithm
b. Resource request algorithm

55. What are the basic functions of an operating

system?

Operating system controls and coordinates the use of the

hardware among the various applications programs for
various uses. Operating system acts as resource allocator
and manager. Since there are many possibly conflicting
requests for resources the operating system must decide
which requests are allocated resources to operating the
computer system efficiently and fairly. Also operating
system is control program which controls the user
programs to prevent errors and improper use of the
computer. It is especially concerned with the operation
and control of I/O devices.

56.Explain briefly about, processor, assembler,

compiler, loader, linker and the functions
executed by them.
Processor:- A processor is the part a computer
system that executes instructions .It is also called a
CPU
Assembler:- An assembler is a program that takes
basic computer instructions and converts them into
a pattern of bits that the computer’s processor can
use to perform its basic operations. Some people call
these instructions assembler language and others
use the term assembly language.
Compiler:- A compiler is a special program that
processes statements written in a particular
programming language and turns them into
machine language or “code” that a computer’s
processor uses. Typically, a programmer writes
language statements in a language such as Pascal or
C one line at a time using an editor. The file that is
created contains what are called the source
statements. The programmer then runs the
appropriate language compiler, specifying the name
of the file that contains the source statements.
Loader:- In a computer operating system, a loader
is a component that locates a given program (which
can be an application or, in some cases, part of the
operating system itself) in offline storage (such as a
hard disk), loads it into main storage (in a personal
computer, it’s called random access memory), and
gives that program control of the compute
Linker:- Linker performs the linking of libraries
with the object code to make the object code into an
executable machine code.

57. What is a Real-Time System?

A real time process is a process that must respond to the
events within a certain time period. A real time operating
system is an operating system that can run real time
processes successfully

58. What is the difference between Hard and Soft

real-time systems?

A hard real-time system guarantees that critical tasks

complete on time. This goal requires that all delays in the
system be bounded from the retrieval of the stored data to
the time that it takes the operating system to finish any
request made of it. A soft real time system where a critical
real-time task gets priority over other tasks and retains
that priority until it completes. As in hard real time
systems kernel delays need to be bounded

59. What is virtual memory?

A virtual memory is hardware technique where the system

appears to have more memory that it actually does. This is
done by time-sharing, the physical memory and storage
parts of the memory one disk when they are not actively
being used

60. What is cache memory?

Cache memory is random access memory (RAM) that a

computer microprocessor can access more quickly than it
can access regular RAM. As the microprocessor processes
data, it looks first in the cache memory and if it finds the
data there (from a previous reading of data), it does not
have to do the more time-consuming reading of data
61.Differentiate between Complier and
Interpreter?

An interpreter reads one instruction at a time and carries

out the actions implied by that instruction. It does not
perform any translation. But a compiler translates the
entire instructions.

62.What are different tasks of Lexical Analysis?

The purpose of the lexical analyzer is to partition the input

text, delivering a sequence of comments and basic
symbols. Comments are character sequences to be
ignored, while basic symbols are character sequences that
correspond to terminal symbols of the grammar defining
the phrase structure of the input

63. Why paging is used?

Paging is solution to external fragmentation problem

which is to permit the logical address space of a process to
be noncontiguous, thus allowing a process to be allocating
physical memory wherever the latter is available.

64. What is Context Switch?

Switching the CPU to another process requires saving the

state of the old process and loading the saved state for the
new process. This task is known as a context
switch.Context-switch time is pure overhead, because the
system does no useful work while switching. Its speed
varies from machine to machine, depending on the
memory speed, the number of registers which must be
copied, the existed of special instructions(such as a single
instruction to load or store all registers).

65. Distributed Systems?

Distribute the computation among several physical

processors.
Loosely coupled system – each processor has its own local
memory; processors communicate with one another
through various communications lines, such as high-speed
buses or telephone lines
Advantages of distributed systems:
->Resources Sharing
->Computation speed up – load sharing
->Reliability
->Communications

66.Difference between Primary storage and

secondary storage?

Main memory: – only large storage media that the CPU

can access directly.
Secondary storage: – extension of main memory that
provides large nonvolatile storage capacity.

67. What is CPU Scheduler?

Selects from among the processes in memory that

are ready to execute, and allocates the CPU to one of
them.
CPU scheduling decisions may take place when a
process:
1.Switches from running to waiting state.
2.Switches from running to ready state.
3.Switches from waiting to ready.
4.Terminates.
Scheduling under 1 and 4 is nonpreemptive.
All other scheduling is preemptive.

68. What do you mean by deadlock?

Deadlock is a situation where a group of processes are all

blocked and none of them can become unblocked until
one of the other becomes unblocked.The simplest
deadlock is two processes each of which is waiting for a
message from the other

69. What is Dispatcher?

->Dispatcher module gives control of the CPU to the

process selected by the short-term scheduler; this
involves:
Switching context
Switching to user mode
Jumping to the proper location in the user program to
restart that program
Dispatch latency – time it takes for the dispatcher to stop
one process and start another running.

70. What is Throughput, Turnaround time,

waiting time and Response time?

Throughput – number of processes that complete their

execution per time unit
Turnaround time – amount of time to execute a particular
process
Waiting time – amount of time a process has been waiting
in the ready queue
Response time – amount of time it takes from when a
request was submitted until the first response is produced,
not output (for time-sharing environment)

71. Explain the difference between microkernel

and macro kernel?

Micro-Kernel: A micro-kernel is a minimal operating

system that performs only the essential functions of an
operating system. All other operating system functions are
performed by system processes.
Monolithic: A monolithic operating system is one where
all operating system code is in a single executable image
and all operating system code runs in system mode.

72.What is multi tasking, multi programming,

multi threading?

Multi programming: Multiprogramming is the technique

of running several programs at a time using timesharing.It
allows a computer to do several things at the same time.
Multiprogramming creates logical parallelism.
The concept of multiprogramming is that the operating
system keeps several jobs in memory simultaneously. The
operating system selects a job from the job pool and starts
executing a job, when that job needs to wait for any i/o
operations the CPU is switched to another job. So the
main idea here is that the CPU is never idle.
Multi tasking: Multitasking is the logical extension of
multiprogramming .The concept of multitasking is quite
similar to multiprogramming but difference is that the
switching between jobs occurs so frequently that the users
can interact with each program while it is running. This
concept is also known as time-sharing systems. A time-
shared operating system uses CPU scheduling and
multiprogramming to provide each user with a small
portion of time-shared system.
Multi threading: An application typically is implemented
as a separate process with several threads of control. In
some situations a single application may be required to
perform several similar tasks for example a web server
accepts client requests for web pages, images, sound, and
so forth. A busy web server may have several of clients
concurrently accessing it. If the web server ran as a
traditional single-threaded process, it would be able to
service only one client at a time. The amount of time that a
client might have to wait for its request to be serviced
could be enormous.
So it is efficient to have one process that contains multiple
threads to serve the same purpose. This approach would
multithread the web-server process, the server would
create a separate thread that would listen for client
requests when a request was made rather than creating
another process it would create another thread to service
the request.
So to get the advantages like responsiveness, Resource
sharing economy and utilization of multiprocessor
architectures multithreading concept can be used

73. Give a non-computer example of preemptive

and non-preemptive scheduling?

Consider any system where people use some kind of

resources and compete for them. The non-computer
examples for preemptive scheduling the traffic on the
single lane road if there is emergency or there is an
ambulance on the road the other vehicles give path to the
vehicles that are in need. The example for preemptive
scheduling is people standing in queue for tickets.

74. What is starvation and aging?

Starvation: Starvation is a resource management problem

where a process does not get the resources it needs for a
long time because the resources are being allocated to
other processes.
Aging: Aging is a technique to avoid starvation in a
scheduling system. It works by adding an aging factor to
the priority of each request. The aging factor must
increase the request’s priority as time passes and must
ensure that a request will eventually be the highest
priority request (after it has waited long enough)

75. Different types of Real-Time Scheduling?

Hard real-time systems – required to complete a critical

task within a guaranteed amount of time.
Soft real-time computing – requires that critical processes
receive priority over less fortunate ones.

76. What are the Methods for Handling

Deadlocks?

Ensure that the system will never enter a deadlock state.

->Allow the system to enter a deadlock state and then
recover.
->Ignore the problem and pretend that deadlocks never
occur in the system; used by most operating systems,
including
UNIX.
77. What is a Safe State and its’ use in deadlock
avoidance?

When a process requests an available resource, system

must decide if immediate allocation leaves the system in a
safe state
->System is in safe state if there exists a safe sequence of
all processes.
->Sequence is safe if for each Pi, the resources that Pi can
still request can be satisfied by
currently available resources + resources held by all the
Pj, with j
If Pi resource needs are not immediately available, then Pi
can wait until all Pj have finished.
When Pj is finished, Pi can obtain needed resources,
execute, return allocated resources, and terminate.
When Pi terminates, Pi+1 can obtain its needed resources,
and so on.
->Deadlock Avoidance Þ ensure that a system will never
enter an unsafe state.

78. Recovery from Deadlock?

Process Termination:
->Abort all deadlocked processes.
->Abort one process at a time until the deadlock cycle is
eliminated.
->In which order should we choose to abort?
Priority of the process.
How long process has computed, and how much longer to
completion.
Resources the process has used.
Resources process needs to complete.
How many processes will need to be terminated?
Is process interactive or batch?
Resource Preemption:
->Selecting a victim – minimize cost.
->Rollback – return to some safe state, restart process for
that state.
->Starvation – same process may always be picked as
victim, include number of rollback in cost factor.

79.Difference between Logical and Physical

Address Space?

->The concept of a logical address space that is bound to a

separate physical address space is central to proper
memory management.
Logical address – generated by the CPU; also referred to
as virtual address.
Physical address – address seen by the memory unit.
->Logical and physical addresses are the same in compile-
time and load-time address-binding schemes; logical
(virtual) and physical addresses differ in execution-time
address-binding scheme

80. Binding of Instructions and Data to Memory?

Address binding of instructions and data to memory

addresses can happen at three different stages
Compile time: If memory location known a priori,
absolute code can be generated; must recompile code if
starting location changes.
Load time: Must generate relocatable code if memory
location is not known at compile time.
Execution time: Binding delayed until run time if the
process can be moved during its execution from one
memory segment to another. Need hardware support for
address maps (e.g., base and limit registers).

81. What is Memory-Management Unit (MMU)?

Hardware device that maps virtual to physical address.

In MMU scheme, the value in the relocation register is
added to every address generated by a user process at the
time it is sent to memory.
->The user program deals with logical addresses; it never
sees the real physical addresses

82. What are Dynamic Loading, Dynamic Linking

and Overlays?

Dynamic Loading:

Routine is not loaded until it is called

Better memory-space utilization; unused routine is
never loaded.
Useful when large amounts of code are needed to
handle infrequently occurring cases.
No special support from the operating system is
required implemented through program design.
Dynamic Linking:
Linking postponed until execution time.
Small piece of code, stub, used to locate the
appropriate memory-resident library routine.
Stub replaces itself with the address of the routine,
and executes the routine.
Operating system needed to check if routine is in
processes’ memory address.
Dynamic linking is particularly useful for libraries.
Overlays:
Keep in memory only those instructions and data
that are needed at any given time.
Needed when process is larger than amount of
memory allocated to it.
Implemented by user, no special support needed
from operating system, programming design of
overlay structure is complex.

83. What is fragmentation? Different types of

fragmentation?

Fragmentation occurs in a dynamic memory allocation

system when many of the free blocks are too small to
satisfy any request.
External Fragmentation: External Fragmentation happens
when a dynamic memory allocation algorithm allocates
some memory and a small piece is left over that cannot be
effectively used. If too much external fragmentation
occurs, the amount of usable memory is drastically
reduced.Total memory space exists to satisfy a request,
but it is not contiguous
Internal Fragmentation: Internal fragmentation is the
space wasted inside of allocated memory blocks because of
restriction on the allowed sizes of allocated
blocks.Allocated memory may be slightly larger than
requested memory; this size difference is memory internal
to a partition, but not being used Reduce external
fragmentation by compaction
->Shuffle memory contents to place all free memory
together in one large block.
->Compaction is possible only if relocation is dynamic,
and is done at execution time.
84. Explain Demand Paging, Page fault interrupt,
and Trashing?

Demand Paging: Demand paging is the paging policy that

a page is not read into memory until it is requested, that
is, until there is a page fault on the page.
Page fault interrupt: A page fault interrupt occurs when a
memory reference is made to a page that is not in
memory.The present bit in the page table entry will be
found to be off by the virtual memory hardware and it will
signal an interrupt.
Trashing: The problem of many page faults occurring in a
short time, called “page thrashing,”

85. Explain Segmentation with paging?

Segments can be of different lengths, so it is harder to find

a place for a segment in memory than a page. With
segmented virtual memory, we get the benefits of virtual
memory but we still have to do dynamic storage allocation
of physical memory. In order to avoid this, it is possible to
combine segmentation and paging into a two-level virtual
memory system. Each segment descriptor points to page
table for that segment.This give some of the advantages of
paging (easy placement) with some of the advantages of
segments (logical division of the program).

86. Under what circumstances do page faults

occur? Describe the actions taken by the
operating system when a page fault occurs?

A page fault occurs when an access to a page that has not

been brought into main memory takes place. The
operating system verifies the memory access, aborting the
program if it is invalid. If it is valid, a free frame is located
and I/O is requested to read the needed page into the free
frame. Upon completion of I/O, the process table and
page table are updated and the instruction is restarted

87. What is the cause of thrashing? How does the

system detect thrashing? Once it detects
thrashing, what can the system do to eliminate
this problem?

Thrashing is caused by under allocation of the minimum

number of pages required by a process, forcing it to
continuously page fault. The system can detect thrashing
by evaluating the level of CPU utilization as compared to
the level of multiprogramming. It can be eliminated by
reducing the level of multiprogramming.

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MARCH 14, 2016 AT 10:07 AM

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