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Operating Systems Concepts Question Paper

Operating Systems Concepts 

Course:Bachelor Of Business Information Technology

Institution: Strathmore University question papers

Exam Year:2011



BBT2201: OPERATING SYSTEMS CONCEPTS
DATE: MARCH 2011 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: - Answer question ONE and any other TWO questions.

QUESTION ONE [20 Marks]
(a) Explain briefly the following terms:
(i) Race condition (ii) Synchronization (iii) Semaphore ((iv) Deadlock (8 marks)
(b) Describe the three states a process can be in while in the system. (6 marks)
(c) What are the four necessary conditions for deadlock? (2 Marks)
(d) Describe the paging memory allocation scheme. What are its advantages and disadvantages over
segmentation? (4 Marks)

QUESTION TWO [20 Marks]
a) Describe briefly four reasons for process termination. (4 Marks)
(b) What is a control structure that the operating system uses to keep the information of the process context?
Give the pieces of information that are likely to be in this structure. (4 marks)
(c) (i) How does the OS implement the process abstraction? (2 marks)
(ii) Explain the difference between a process and a thread. (4 marks)
(d) (i) How do you define the User-Level Threads (ULT)? (3 Marks)
(ii) What are the Kernel activity for ULTs? (3 Marks
2

QUESTION THREE [20 Marks]
(a) Using the multiprocessing capability criteria, how do you decribe the differences between DOS, NT, and
UNIX. (3 marks)
(b) (i) What are the stipulations of C2 level security? (4 Marks)
(c) (i) Explain any three of the six typical elements of a process image. (6 Marks)
(d) (i) Distinguish between scheduling and a scheduler. (4 marks)
(ii) What are local and global page replacements? (3 marks)

QUESTION FOUR [20 Marks]
(a) (i) Explain any two of the four popular multiprocessor thread-scheduling strategies. (4 Marks)
(ii) Describe four typical services provided by the operating systems. (4 Marks)
(iii) Discuss the two components that make up any I/O device. (4 marks)
(b) (i) Distinguish between security policies and mechanism. (2 marks)
(ii) Explain the principle of fragmentation. Discuss the two main types of fragmentation. (6 Marks)

QUESTION FIVE [20 Marks]
(c) (i) Describe the concept of virtual memory. (2 marks)
(ii) Distinguish between the FIFO and LRU replacement policy. (4 marks)
(d) (i) What is the definition of Critical Section (CS) and what is the requirement for the excecution of CS?
(4 marks)
(ii)Describe in detail, the three types of solutions that address the critical section problem. (6 marks)
(iii) What are the drawbacks of software solutions to the critical section problem? And how does the Semaphores
concept helps? (4 Marks)






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