Introduction to operating systems, DTAA59, DTEA39
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Examination paper
on the course “Introduction to operating systems A” 07-04-24
Lecturer: Alexander Kozynchenko, ITM/IKS
The maximum number of points – 44.
35 - 44: VG
38 - 44: 5
22 - 34: G
28 - 37: 4
22 – 27: 3
21 or less: failed
The English-Swedish dictionary should be available in the examination room. A
calculator is allowed. Answers should be given preferably in English, but they are also
acceptable in Swedish. Please, don’t use red ink. Good luck!
1. (max 5 points) Describe the structure of the von Neumann computer architecture
and hardware components that an operating system manages to meet its users’
computing needs (CPU and its components, main memory, secondary storage,
peripheral controllers and devices, motherboard, BIOS, and buses).
2. (max 5 points) Explain the ways of ensuring a hardware protection (CPU,
memory, I/O) in modern operating systems and maintaining control (incl. dualmode operation, system calls, and privileged instructions).
3. (max 4 points) Show a structure of the UNIX operating system. Describe the socalled system programs level (between user applications and a system call
interface) and services that system programs can provide.
4. (max 6 points) Give definitions of a process and a thread. Draw and explain a fivestate transition diagram. How to create a new process in Windows and UNIX
operating systems?
5. (max 5 points) Consider the problem of concurrent execution of cooperating
processes. Describe the producer-consumer problem, its shared-memory solution. .
Explain a message-based interprocess communication (IPC) (synchronization and
addressing).
6. (max 5 points) What do you know about the round-robin (RR) scheduling
algorithm? Suppose, we have the following set of processes described with the
help of a triple <process ID, arrival time (ms), burst time (ms)>:
<P1, 0, 10>, <P2, 1, 3>, <P3, 2, 6>. Draw a Gantt chart for
scheduling with the RR-algorithm (time quantum equals to 4 ms) and compute an
average waiting time.
7. (max 4 points) Outline and compare two general approaches to solutions of a
critical-section problem. Describe the Peterson’s algorithm and a simple boundedwaiting mutual exclusion algorithm with TestAndSet or Swap instructions.
8. (max 5 points) Make a comparison between fixed and dynamic memory
partitioning. Explain the basic problems to be overcome in memory allocation.
Describe the main memory placement strategies.
Introduction to operating systems, DTAA59, DTEA39
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9. (max 5 points) On secondary storage, a file consists of a collection of blocks.
Compare three main methods for allocating blocks to files. Illustrate your answer,
at least for one method, with an example of a file allocation table and block
arrangement at the secondary storage.