OPERATING SYSTEM VIVA QUESTIONS

1) What is an operating system?

The operating system is a software program that facilitates computer hardware to communicate
and operate with the computer software. It is the most important part of a computer system
without it computer is just like a box.

2) What are the different operating systems?

Batched operating systems

Distributed operating systems

Timesharing operating systems

Multi-programmed operating systems

Real-time operating systems

3) What is kernel?

Kernel is the core and most important part of a computer operating system which provides
basic services for all parts of the OS.

4) What do you mean by a process?

An executing program is known as process. There are two types of processes:

Operating System Processes

User Processes

5) What are the different states of a process?

A list of different states of process:

New Process

Running Process

Waiting Process

Ready Process
Terminated Process

6) What is the difference between process and program?

A program while running or executing is known as a process.

7) What is the use of paging in operating system?

Paging is used to solve the external fragmentation problem in operating system. This technique
ensures that the data you need is available as quickly as possible.

8) What is the concept of demand paging?

Demand paging specifies that if an area of memory is not currently being used, it is swapped to
disk to make room for an application's need.

9) What is virtual memory?

Virtual memory is a very useful memory management technique which enables processes to
execute outside of memory. This technique is especially used when an executing program
cannot fit in the physical memory.

10) What is thrashing?

Thrashing is a phenomenon in virtual memory scheme when the processor spends most of its
time in swapping pages, rather than executing instructions.

11) What are the four necessary and sufficient conditions behind the deadlock?

These are the 4 conditions:

1. Mutual Exclusion Condition

2. Hold and Wait Condition

3. No-Preemptive Condition

4. Circular Wait Condition

12) What is a thread?

A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization. It consists of a thread ID, program counter, register
set and a stack.
13) What is FCFS?

FCFS stands for First Come, First Served. It is a type of scheduling algorithm. In this scheme,
if a process requests the CPU first, it is allocated to the CPU first. Its implementation is
managed by a FIFO queue.

14) What is SMP?

SMP stands for Symmetric Multiprocessing. It is the most common type of multiple processor
system. In SMP, each processor runs an identical copy of the operating system, and these
copies communicate with one another when required.

15) What is deadlock?

Deadlock is a specific situation or condition where two processes are waiting for each other to
complete so that they can start.

16) What is Banker's algorithm?

Banker's algorithm is used to avoid deadlock. It is the one of deadlock-avoidance method. It is

named as Banker's algorithm on the banking system where bank never allocates available cash
in such a manner that it can no longer satisfy the requirements of all of its customers.

17) What is the difference between logical address space and physical address space?

Logical address space specifies the address that is generated by CPU. On the other hand
physical address space specifies the address that is seen by the memory unit.

18) What is fragmentation?

Fragmentation is a phenomenon of memory wastage. It reduces the capacity and performance

because space is used inefficiently.

19) How many types of fragmentation occur in Operating System?

There are two types of fragmentation:

Internal fragmentation: It is occurred when we deal with the systems that have fixed size
allocation units.

External fragmentation: It is occurred when we deal with systems that have variable-size
allocation units.
20) What is spooling?

Spooling is a process in which data is temporarily gathered to be used and executed by a

device, program or the system. It is associated with printing. When different applications send
output to the printer at the same time, spooling keeps these all jobs into a disk file and queues
them accordingly to the printer.

21) What is semaphore?

Semaphore is a protected variable or abstract data type that is used to lock the resource being
used. The value of the semaphore indicates the status of a common resource.

There are two types of semaphore:

Binary semaphores

Counting semaphores

22) What is a binary Semaphore?

Binary semaphore takes only 0 and 1 as value and used to implement mutual exclusion and
synchronize concurrent processes.

23) What is Belady's Anomaly?

Belady's Anomaly is also called FIFO anomaly. Usually, on increasing the number of frames
allocated to a process virtual memory, the process execution is faster, because fewer page faults
occur. Sometimes, the reverse happens, i.e., the execution time increases even when more
frames are allocated to the process. This is Belady's Anomaly. This is true for certain page
reference patterns.

24) What is starvation in Operating System?

Starvation is Resource management problem. In this problem, a waiting process does not get
the resources it needs for a long time because the resources are being allocated to other
processes.

25) What is aging in Operating System?

Aging is a technique used to avoid the starvation in resource scheduling system.

26) When does trashing occur?

Thrashing specifies an instance of high paging activity. This happens when it is spending more
time paging instead of executing.

27) Do the Batch Operating System interact with Computer for processing the needs of jobs or
processes required?

No, this is not that kind of Operating Systems which tries to interact with the computer. But,
this job is taken up by the Operator present in the Batch Operating Systems.

28) What is a System Call in Operating Systems?

Programs can communicate with the operating system by making a system call. When a
computer application requests anything from the kernel of the operating system, it performs a
system call. System call uses Application Programming Interfaces (API)to deliver operating
system services to user programs

29) What are the functions which are present in the File Management System Call?

The Functions present in File Management System Calls are:

Create, Open, Read, Close, Delete

30) What is Process Control Block (PCB)?

A data structure called a Process Control Block houses details about the processes connected to
it. The term "process control block" can also refer to a "task control block," "process table
entry," etc.

31) What are the differences between Thread and Process

Thread Process

Threads are executed within the Processes are executed in the different
same process memory spaces

Threads are not independent of each Processes are independent of each other
other
32) What is Process Scheduling In Operating Systems?

The task of the process manager that deals with removing the active process from the CPU and
choosing a different process based on a certain strategy is known as process scheduling.

33) What are types of Process Scheduling Techniques in Operating Systems?

The types of Process Scheduling Techniques in Operating Systems are:

Pre Emptive Process Scheduling

Non Pre Emptive Process Scheduling

34) What is Context Switching?

Context switching is a technique or approach that the operating system use to move a process
from one state to another so that it can carry out its intended function using system CPUs.

35) Process synchronization, often known as synchronization, is the method an operating

system uses to manage processes that share the same memory space. By limiting the number of
processes that may modify the shared memory at once via hardware or variables, it helps ensure
the consistency of the data.

36) What are the Classical Problems of Process Synchronization?

The Classical Problems of Process Synchronization are:

Bound Buffer Problem or Consumer Producer Problem

Dining Philosopher's Problem

Readers and writers Problem

Sleeping Barber Problem

37) What are the Operations in Semaphores?

The Operations in Semaphores are:

Wait or P Function ()

Signal or V Function ()
38) What is a Critical Section Problem?

The section of a program known as the Critical Section attempts to access shared resources.

39) What are the methods of Handling Deadlocks?

The methods of handling deadlock are:

Deadlock Prevention

Deadlock Detection and Recovery

Deadlock Avoidance

Deadlock Ignorance

40) How can we avoid Deadlock?

We can avoid Deadlock by using Banker's Algorithm.

41) What is Address Translation in Paging?

Logical and physical memory addresses, both of which are distinct, are the two types of
memory addresses that are employed in the paging process. The logical address is the address
that the CPU creates for each page in the secondary memory, but the physical address is the
actual location of the frame where each page will be allocated. We now require a technique
known as address translation carried out by the page table in order to translate this logical
address into a physical address.

42) What is Translational Look Aside Buffer?

Whenever logical address is created by the Central Processing Unit (CPU), the page number is
stored in the Translational Look Aside Buffer. Along, with the page number, the frame number
is also stored.

43) What are Page Replacement Algorithms in Operating Systems?

The Page Replacement Algorithms in Operating Systems are:

1. First In First Out

2. Optimal
3. Least Recently Used
 4. Most Recently Used

44) In which Page Replacement Algorithm does Belady's Anomaly occur?

In First in First out Page Replacement Algorithm Belady's Anomaly occurs.

45) What is Disk Scheduling in Operating Systems?

Operating systems use disk scheduling to plan when Input or Output requests for the disk will
arrive. Input or Output scheduling is another name for disk scheduling.

46) What are the Disk Scheduling Algorithms used in Operating Systems?

The Disk Scheduling Algorithms used in Operating Systems are:

1. First Come First Serve

2. Shortest Seek Time First
3. LOOK
4. SCAN
5. C SCAN
6. C LOOK

47) What is Monitors in the context of Operating Systems?

A feature of programming languages called monitors and ithelps in controlledaccess to shared

data. The Monitor is a collection of shared actions, data structures, and synchronization
between parallel procedure calls. A monitor is therefore sometimes referred to as a
synchronization tool. Some of the languages that support the usage of monitors are Java, C#,
Visual Basic, Ada

48) What is the importance of Disk Scheduling in Operating Systems?

1. One Input or Output request may be fulfilled by the disk controller at a time, even if
several Input or Output requests could come in from other processes. Other Input or
Output requests must thus be scheduled and made to wait in the waiting queue.
2. The movement of the disk arm might increase if two or more requests are placed far
apart from one another.
 3. Since hard disks are among the slower components of the computer system, they must be
accessible quickly.

49) What is Buffer?

A buffer is a memory area that stores data being transferred between two devices or between a
device and an application.

50) What problem we face in computer system without OS?

Poor resource management

Lack of User Interface
No File System
No Networking
Error handling is big issue
etc.