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Operating system questions with their answers (Memory management, Virtual

memory, Processes synchronization) Part two

Data · June 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3971.6001

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 Operating system questions with their answers
(Memory management, Virtual memory, Processes synchronization)

Memory management

Q1: Why does the computer must keep several processes in main memory?
Answer Q1
To improve both the utilization of the CPU and the speed of its response to users

Q2: What are the differences between?

a) Logical and physical address?
b) Page table and segment table?
c) First-fit placement and best-fit placement?
d) Contiguous and non – contiguous storage allocation
e) Multiple contiguous fixed partitions (MFT) and multiple contiguous
variable partitions (MVT).
f) Segmentation and paging storage?
Answer Q2
a) Logical and physical address
Logical address Physical address
It is the address generated by the It is the address actually seen by the
CPU memory hardware

b) Page table and segment table

Page table Segment table
1 It contains the base address of It contains the segment address
each page in physical memory in physical memory.
2 The entries in page table are The entries are segment base and
page number and corresponding segment limit
frame number

c) First-fit placement and best-fit placement?

First-fit Best-fit
1 The incoming job is placed in the The incoming job is placed in the
first hole that is big enough. small hole that is big enough.
2 It does not need search the entire It need search the entire hole set to
hole set to place the job. place the job.
3 It is faster to allocate. It is slower.
4 More waste in storage Less waste in storage
d) Contiguous and non – contiguous storage allocation
Contiguous storage Non-contiguous storage
A program occupies a single A program is divided into several
1 contiguous block of storage blocks or segments that may be
locations. placed in memory in pieces not
necessary adjacent to one another.
2 Faster in store Slower in store
3 More waste in memory Less waste in memory

e) Multiple contiguous fixed partitions (MFT) and multiple contiguous

variable partitions (MVT).
Divide memory into several Memory is a collection of variable-
fixed-sized partitions. Each sized segments that vary dynamically.
partition may contain exactly one
process.
More fragmentation problems Less fragmentation problems

f) Segmentation and paging storage?

Segmentation Paging
The physical memory is breaking The physical memory is breaking into
into variable-sized blocks called fixed-sized blocks called frames and
segments logical memory is breaking into
blocks of the same size called pages
Address generated by CPU is Address generated by CPU is divided
divided into segment number (S) into Page number (p) and Page offset
and segment offset (d). (d).

Each segment has a name and a A pages are fixed size

length (variable size)
Physical address = segment base Physical address = page size * frame
+ offset number + offset
May be external fragmentation No external fragmentation
Q3: State and explain Storage management strategies?
Answer Q3
There are many strategies are used to obtaining the best possible use of the main
storage. Some of these strategies are:
1. Fetch strategies are concerned with when to obtain the next piece of
program or data for transfer to main storage from secondary storage. There
are two approaches.
A) Demand fetch strategies: The next piece of program or data is brought
into the main memory when it is referenced by a running program.
B) Anticipatory fetch strategies: They make predict and guesses and
anticipating the future where program control will go next.

2. Placement strategies: They are concerned with determining where in main

storage to place a new program. Strategies are most commonly used to select
a free hole from the set of available holes.
There are three placement strategies:
A. First fit. The incoming job places in the first hole that is big enough.
It does not need search all the hole set. It is faster strategies to
placement.
B. Best fit. Allocate the smallest hole that is big enough. It needs to
search the entire list, unless the list is ordered by size. This strategy
produces the smallest leftover hole.
C. Worst fit. Allocate the largest hole enough. Again, it must search the
entire list, unless it is sorted by size. This strategy produces the largest
leftover hole, which may be more useful than the smaller leftover hole
from a best-fit approach.

3. Replacement strategies: They are concerned with determining which piece

of program of data to displace to make room for a new program or data.
Q4: Suppose that we have free segments with sizes: 6, 17, 25, 14, and 19. Place a
program with size 13kB in the free segment using first-fit, best-fit and worst
fit?
Answer Q4

Q5: What are the advantages of?

a) Overlays allocation storage.
b) Compaction.
c) Page table.
d) Segment table.
Answer Q5
(a) It allows allocating to run a program that its size larger than the amount of
memory.
(b) To solve the fragmentation problem in segmentation storage.
(c) It uses to the physical memory of each page.
(d) It uses to the physical memory of each segment.

Q6: Consider a user program of logical address of size 6 pages and page size is 4
bytes. The physical address contains 300 frames. The user program consists of
22 instructions a, b, c, . . . u, v . Each instruction takes 1 byte. Assume at that
time the free frames are 7, 26, 52, 20, 55, 6, 18, 21, 70, and 90.
Find the following? (10 degrees)
A) Draw the logical and physical maps and page tables?
B) Allocate each page in the corresponding frame?
C) Find the physical addresses for the instructions m, d, v, r?
D) Calculate the fragmentation if exist?
Answer Q6

Physical map
The physical address = page size * frame number + offset
The physical address of m = 4*20 +0 = 80
The physical address of d = 4*7+3 = 31
The physical address of v = 4* 6 +1 = 25
The physical address of r = 4*55+ 1= 221
The external fragmentation = 0
The internal fragmentation = 2

Q7: Consider a program consists of five segments: S0 = 600, S1 = 14 KB, S2= 100
KB, S3 =580 KB, and S4 = 96 KB. Assume at that time, the available free
 space partitions of memory are 1200–1805, 50 – 150, 220-234, and 2500-3180.
Find the following:
1. Draw logical to physical maps and segment table?
2. Allocate space for each segment in memory?
3. Calculate the external fragmentation and the internal fragmentation?
4. What are the addresses in physical memory for the following logical
addresses: 0.580, (b) 1.17 (c) 2.66 (d) 3.82 (e) 4.20?

Answer Q7

The logical map is:

S4 = 96

S0 = 600 S3 = 580
S2 = 100 S1 = 14

Logical map
 External fragmentation =0.

Internal fragmentation = (160-150) +(1805-1800) + (3180-3176)

= 10 + 5 + 4 = 19
Fragmentation = external fragmentation + internal fragmentation = 0 + 19 = 19
4. The physical addresses are
a) 0.580the physical address of 0.580 = 1200+580 = 1780.
b) 1.17  because d > limit of S1, the address is wrong.
c) 2.66 the physical address of 2.66= 50 + 66 = 116
d) 3.82 the physical address is of 3.82 is = 2500 + 82 = 2582
e) 4.20  the physical address 4.20 = 3080+20 = 3100

virtual memory
Q8: Define the virtual memory? What are its advantages?
Answer Q8
Virtual memory is a technique that allows the execution of processes that are not
completely in memory.
Advantages:
1) Enables users to run programs that are larger than actual physical memory.

2) VM makes the task of programming much easier.

3) Virtual memory allows processes to share files easily and to implement
shared memory.
4) It provides an efficient mechanism for process creation.
Q9: What is the demand paging?
Answer Q
Demand paging is a method of virtual memory management that loads pages
when they are demanded during program execution.

Q10: What are the advantages of using pager (i.e. demand paging)?
Answer Q10
1) Less swap time
2) Less I/O needed
3) Less amount of physical memory needed
4) More users
 5) Faster response time
Q11: What are the differences between pager and swapper?

Answer Q11
Pager Swapper
Pager Swaps a page into memory swapper swaps the entire processes
1 when this page will be needed into memory
into memory.

2 It use in demand-paging system It uses in paging system

Q12: How can the system distinguish between the pages that are in main memory
from the pages that are on the disk?

Answer Q12
The system uses valid-invalid bit is used. This bit is set to "valid" when the page
in memory, while it set to "invalid" when the page either not valid or is the page is
valid but is on the disk, as in the following figure.

Q13: When will the page faults occur? What is the procedure for handling the
page fault?
Answer Q13
The page fault will occur when the process tries to access a page which was not
into main memory.
The procedure for handling the page fault is:
 1) Check an internal table for this process to determine whether the reference
was a valid or an invalid memory access.
2) If the reference was invalid, we terminate the process. If it was valid, but we
have not yet brought in that page, we now page it in.
3) Find a free frame.
4) Schedule a disk operation to read the desired page into the newly allocated
frame.
5) When the disk read is complete, we modify the internal table kept with the
process and the page table to indicate that the page is now in memory.
6) Restart the instruction that was interrupted by the trap. The process can now
access the page as though it had always been in memory.

Q14: How can measure the performance of demand paging?

Answer Q14
To measure the demand paging , the effective access time for a demand –paged
memory is calculated by:
Effective access time = (1 – p) x ma + p x page fault time
Where p: The probability of page fault, 0 < p < 1;
ma: Memory access time , ranges from 10 to 200 nanosecond.

Q15: Assume an average page-fault service time is 25 milliseconds and a memory

access time is 100 nanoseconds. Find the Effective Access Time?
Answer Q15
Effective Access Time (EAT)= (1 – p) x (ma) + p x (page fault time)
= (1 – p) x 100 + p x 25,000,000
= 100 – 100 x p + 25,000,000 x p

Q16: What are the steps to modify the page-fault service routine to include page
replacement?
Answer Q16
1. Find the location of the desired page on the disk.
2. Find a free frame:
a) If there is a free frame, use it.
b) If there are no free frames, use a page-replacement algorithm to select a
victim frame.
c) Write the victim frame to the disk, change the pages table.
3. Read the desired page and store it in the free frame. Adjust the page table.
4. Restart the user process.
Q17: What are the operations of page replacement algorithm?

Answer Q17
Every page replacement algorithm is operated by the following three operations:
1) Search: To search required pages from main memory.
2) Delete: To delete the evict page from main memory.
3) Insert: To insert the page into main memory.

Q18: What are the principles of the following replacement algorithms?

a) FIFO.
b) LRU.
Answer Q18
a) A FIFO replacement algorithm associates with each page the time when that
page was brought into memory. When a page must be replaced, the oldest
page is chosen.
b) In LRU, we can replace the page that has not been used for the longest
period of time.

Q19: Consider the following page reference using three frames that are initially
empty. Find the page faults using FIFO algorithm, where the page reference
sequence: 7,0,1, 2,0,3,0,4,2,3,0,3,2,1,2,0,1,7,0,1?

Answer Q19

Page fault

The page fault = 15.

Q20: Consider the following page reference using three frames that are initially
empty. Find the page faults using LRU algorithm, where the page reference
sequence: 7,0,1, 2,0,3,0,4,2,3,0,3,2,1,2,0,1,7,0,1?

Answer Q20

7 0 1 2 0 3 0 4 2 3 0 3 2 1 2 0 1 7 0 1

7 7 7 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0 0

1 1 1 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 7 7 7

Page fault= 12
 Process synchronization
Q21: Define (1) Cooperating process (2) Independent process (3) Race condition
(4) Critical section (5) Semaphore
Answer Q21

1) Cooperating process: It is the process than can affect or be affected by

other processes executing in the system.
2) Independent process: it is the process than cannot affect or be affected by
other processes executing in the system
3) Race condition: When several processes access and manipulate the same
data at the same time of the execution depends on the particular order in
which the access takes place, is called a race condition.
4) Critical section: It is a segment of code in system process in which the
process may be changing common variables, updating a table, writing a file,
and so on.
5) Semaphore is a synchronization tool which can be used to deal with the
critical-section problem (does not require busy waiting). A semaphore S has
two standard operations: wait( ) and signal( ). The wait( ) operation was
termed P, signal( ) was called V.

Q22: What do we need to guard against the race condition?

Answer Q22

To guard against the race condition, we need to ensure that only one process at a
time can be manipulating the variable count. We require that the processes by
synchronized in some way.

Q23: What is general structure of a typical process P?

Answer Q23
Each process must request permission to enter its critical section. The section of code
implementing this request is the entry section. The critical section may be followed
by an exit section. The remaining code is the remainder section. The general
structure of a typical process Pi is shown in following figure
Q24: What are the requirements of solution the critical-section problem?

Answer Q24

The requirements are:

1. Mutual exclusion. If process Pi is executing in its critical section, then no

other processes can be executing in their critical section.
2. Progress. If no process is executing in its critical section and some
processes wish to enter their critical section, then only those processes that
are not executing in their remainder sections can participate in the decision
on which will enter its CS next, and this selection cannot be postponed
indefinitely. (No process should have to wait forever to enter its critical
section.
3. Bounded waiting. There exists a bound, or limit, on the number of times
that other processes are allowed to enter their critical sections after a process
has made a request to enter its critical section and before that request is
granted

Q25: Define the semaphore operations?

Answer Q25
The classical definitions of wait and signal are:
 The P operation (wait) on semaphore S, written P(S), operates as
follows:
if S > 0 then S := S – 1;
else (wait on S)
  The V operation (signal) on semaphore S, written V(S), operates as
follows:
if (one or more processes are waiting on S)
then (let one of these processes proceed)
else S:= S + 1;

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