CONFIDENTIAL CS/APR 2006/ITC520

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

FINAL EXAMINATION

COURSE OPERATING SYSTEM CONCEPTS

COURSE CODE ITC520

EXAMINATION APRIL 2006

TIME 3 HOURS

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

1. This question paper consists of EIGHT(8) questions

2. Answer ALL questions.

3. Answer to each question must be written in the answer booklet.

4. Do not bring any material into the examination room unless permission is given by the
invigilator.

5. Please check to make sure that this examination pack consists of:
i) the Question Paper
ii) an Answer Booklet - provided by the Faculty

DO NOT TURN THIS PAGE UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO

This examination paper consists of 4 printed pages
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CONFIDENTIAL CS/APR 2006/ITC520

QUESTION 1

Explain the terminologies below:

a) PThread
b) System Call
c) Kernel
d) Medium-term Scheduler
e) Interrupt
(10 marks)

QUESTION 2

a) Program execution is one of many operating system services. If this features is left
out when designing an operating system, what are the expected difficulties that will
arise. Discuss.
(8 marks)

b) Over the recent years, Graphical User Interface (GUI) has gained more popularity
compared to Command Line Interface. Why is that so?
(6 marks)

QUESTION 3

a) Consider the following segment table:

Segment Base Length

0 219 600
1 2300 14
2 90 100
3 1327 580
4 1952 96

What are the physical addresses for the following logical addresses?
(8 marks)

i. (0,430)
ii. (1,10)
iii. (2,500)
iv. (3,400)

b) List out the resources for Operating System?

(3 marks)

© Hak Cipta Universiti Teknologi MARA CONFIDENTIAL

CONFIDENTIAL CS/APR 2006/ITC520

QUESTION 4

a) When does a multithreaded solution using multiple kernel threads provide better
performance than a single-threaded solution on a single processor system?
(7 marks)

b) Explain what you understand by the idea of a thread pool.

(5 marks)

QUESTION 5

a) How does the Operating System manage resources in order to avoid deadlock from
occuring?
(8 marks)
b) What does it mean by being in a "safe state" in the context of deadlocks?

(4 marks)

QUESTION 6

a) How does the Operating System convert the physical address from the logical
address?
Note: Support your answer with the appropriate diagram and example.

(6 marks)

b) Consider the following set of processes, with the length of the CPU-burst time given in
milliseconds. The processes have arrived in order from P1 to P5 all at time 0. In the
space below, draw four Gantt chars illustrating the execution of these processes using
FCFS, SJF, RR (with quantum size = 2), and a non-preemptive priority (a smaller
priority number implies a higher priority) scheduling.

Process Bust Time Priority

P1 12 3
P2 1 1
P3 3 3
P4 1 4
P5 7 2

(12 marks)

© Hak Cipta Universiti Teknologi MARA CONFIDENTIAL

CONFIDENTIAL CS/APR 2006/ITC520

QUESTION 7

a) What is the minimum number of page faults for an optimal page-replacement strategy
for the reference string below with four page frames?
1,2,3,4,5,3,4,1,6,7,8,7,8,9,7,8,9,5,4,5,4,2

(6 marks)

b) Describe internal and external fragmentation in memory management?

(4 marks)

QUESTION 8

a) On a system with paging, a process cannot access memory that it does not
own, why? Discuss.

(8 marks)

b) In virtual memory, what is the effect of increasing the page size?

(5 marks)

END OF QUESTION PAPER

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