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BITH201

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14 views4 pages

BITH201

Uploaded by

jukes
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND

MULTIMEDIA COMMUNICATION

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY/SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

BITH201: OPERATING SYSTEMS

May 2019

Time: 3 Hours

INSTRUCTIONS

Answer all five questions.

Each question carries 20 marks.

Answer all questions in Answer Books provided.

Question 1

BITH201: OPERATING SYSTEMS


PAGE 1 OF 4
(a) Consider the following systems with 5 processes, P0 through P4 and four
resources types A, B, C, D. At time T0 .the following is a snapshot of the
system taken

(i) Determine the contents of the Need Matrix. [5]

(ii) Use the Banker’s Algorithm to determine whether the system is in a


safe state or not. [10]

(b) With the aid of a diagram, describe the process control block as used in
process management. [5]

Question 2

(a) With the aid of diagrams, describe two types of fixed partition allocation
used in memory management. [8]

(b) Three solutions to dynamic allocation storage problems are: first fit,
best fit and worst fit. Explain the principles involved in each of the
methods. [4]

(c) Ken intends to procure an operating system for his personal computer.
Explain two factors that he should consider. [2]

(d) The buddy system is a memory management scheme that uses variable
sized partitions. Explain the basic principle behind the buddy systems. [5]

Question 3

BITH201: OPERATING SYSTEMS


PAGE 2 OF 4
(a) With regard to process synchronization describe what is meant by race
conditions? [5]

(b) In order to avoid race conditions, what four conditions must be satisfied? [4]

(c) Can a process make a transition from the ready state to the blocked state?
justify your answer. [3]

(d) Describe a counting semaphore and give a scenario where it can be


useful. [4]

(e) List four conditions necessary for deadlock to occur. [4]

Question 4

(a) Consider a physical memory with three page frame .Using the string
2 0 3 2 4 3 5 1 0 1 2 3illustrate the Least Recently Used replacement
algorithm. [7]

(b) When a process is swapped out of memory to be swapped back in at a later


time, it may not be returned to its old location. This relocation may affect I/O
operations.

(i) Explain how I/O is affected in the problem described above. [3]
(ii) Suggest a method to address this problem. [2]

(c) Thrashing can be a problem in memory management. Define thrashing


and suggest a method that can be used to prevent thrashing. [4]

(d) Outline differences between paging and contagious memory allocation. [4]

BITH201: OPERATING SYSTEMS


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Question 5
(a) Describe the technique referred to as zero-fill-on-demand that operating
systems may use when allocating. Why is this required? [5]

(b) Consider the following CPU scheduling snippet for the following process
P1 to P4:

(i) Draw Gantt charts and calculate average waiting time for FCFS
and SJF algorithms. [8]

(c) You are responsible for maximizing the utilization of computing resources
for a large scale multiuser system. You are receiving complaints from most
users about response and turnaround times when accessing the server.
Investigations reveal that the CPU is being utilized only 20% of the time.
Which of the following could be reasons for the poor CPU utilisation?
Explain why for each that you choose and why not for the others. [7]

(i) insufficient memory;

(ii) frame size too small;

(iii) frame size is too large;

(iv) too much memory;

(v) one CPU is not enough.

BITH201: OPERATING SYSTEMS


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