Chapter 2:
1. There are two different ways that commands can be processed by a command interpreter. One way is to allow the command interpreter to contain the code needed to execute the command. The other way is to implement the commands through system programs. Compare and contrast the two approaches.
2. Describe the relationship between an API, the system-call interface, and the operating system.
3. What are the advantages of using a higher-level language to implement an operating system?
4. Explain why a modular kernel may be the best of the current operating system design techniques.
Chapter 3:
1. Explain the purpose of external data representation (XDR).
2. Explain the concept of context switching.
3. Ordinarily the exec() system call follows the fork(). Explain what would happen if a programmer were to inadvertently place the call to exec() before the call to fork().
Chapter 4:
For chapter 4, you may complete any two of the first three exercises. You must complete the two exercises marked required.
1. What are the two different ways in which a thread library could be implemented?
2. List the four major categories of the benefits of multithreaded programming. Briefly explain each.
3. Multicore systems present certain challenges for multithreaded programming. Briefly describe these challenges.
4. Distinguish between data and task parallelism. (Required)
5. Describe how OpenMP is a form of implicit threading. (Required)
Chapter 5
1. Explain two general approaches to handle critical sections in operating systems.
2. Write two short methods that implement the simple semaphore wait() and signal() operations on global variable S.
3. What is the difference between software transactional memory and hardware transactional memory?
4. Assume you have a function named update() that updates shared data. Illustrate how a mutex lock named mutex might be used to prevent a race condition in update().
Chapter 6
1. What effect does the size of the time quantum have on the performance of an RR algorithm?
2. Explain the process of starvation and how aging can be used to prevent it.
3. Describe two general approaches to load balancing for processes.
4. What is deterministic modeling and when is it useful in evaluating a scheduling algorithm?
Chapter 7
1. Describe two protocols to ensure that the hold-and-wait condition never occurs in a system.
2. Describe a wait-for graph, compare it to a resource-allocation graph, and explain how it detects a deadlock.
3. What factors influence the decision of when to invoke a detection algorithm?
4. Name three issues that need to be addressed if a preemption is required to deal with deadlocks.
Chapter 8
Exercise 0 is an Extra Credit exercise.
0. What is the context switch time, associated with swapping, if a disk drive with a transfer rate of 2 MB/s is used to swap out part of a program that is 200 KB in size? Assume that no seeks are necessary and that the average latency is 15 ms. The time should reflect only the amount of time necessary to swap out the process.
1. Describe how a transaction look-aside buffer (TLB) assists in the translation of a logical address to a physical address.
2. How are illegal page addresses recognized and trapped by the operating system?
3. Briefly describe the segmentation memory management scheme. How does it differ from the paging memory management scheme in terms of the user's view of memory?
4. How is a limit register used for protecting main memory?
Chapter 9
1. Explain the sequence of events that happens when a page-fault occurs.
2. What is the equation that is used to compute the effective access time for a demand-paged memory system? Explain.
3. Explain the concept behind prepaging.
4. Why doesn't a local replacement algorithm solve the problem of thrashing entirely?
5. Explain how copy-on-write operates.
Chapter 10
1. What is the advantage of LOOK over SCAN disk head scheduling?
2. What are the factors influencing the selection of a disk-scheduling algorithm?
3. Describe two techniques that can enable multiple disks to be used to improve data transfer rates.
4. Describe an approach for managing bad blocks on a disk.
5. Describe how ZFS uses checksums to maintain the integrity of data.