Operating Systems 2022

U3680
National Taipei University

Midterm Exam [Chapter 1 - Chapter 5]

1. What are the goals of multi-programming and time-sharing? (6%)

• multi-programming: increase CPU utilization and keep CPU busy (3%)

• time-sharing: provide interactivity and reduce response time (3%)

2. Why do we need to distinguish user-mode instructions and kernel-mode instructions? (3%)

Describe how an OS implements the kernel-mode instructions? (3%)

• for protecting system resource and preventing a process from causing harm to other processes
(3%)
• by using a mode bit (1%) and system calls (2%)

3. What are differences between system calls and API? (8%)

• system calls: the programming interface to the services provided by the OS; generally
avialable as assembly-language instructions; each system call is a very short program focusing
on a specific task (4%)
• API: an encapsulation of system calls for programmer; usually implemented by high-level
language; provide portability; can combine zero or multiple system calls to do a more complex
task (4%)

4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the micro-kernel approach to system design? (6%)

• advantages: safer, less possible to crash, modulation, easy to extend, easier for porting (4%)
• disadvantage: slow (2%)

5. Draw the diagram of process state and briefly describe the meaning of each state. (10%)

• diagram of process state (5%)

Operating Systems 2022 Midterm Exam 2

• – new: the process is being created (1%)

– ready: the process is in the memory waiting to be assigned to a processor (1%)
– running: the process whose instructions are being executed by CPU (1%)
– waiting: the process is waiting for events (e.g., I/O) to occur (1%)
– terminated: the process has finished execution (1%)

6. What are the two inter-process communication models and how do they work? (10%)

• message passing (2%): build connection using send/recv message under the assistance from
OS; the sender first copies the message or data to OS memory, then the receiver copies the
message or data from OS’s memory to its own memory space (3%)
• shared memory (2%): OS first creates a shared memory space for communication, then
the processes can directly access the shared memory; programmer needs to take the data
synchronization on their own (3%)

7. Including the initial parent process, how many processes are created by the program shown
below? (5%)

there are 32 processes. (5%)

8. Which of the following components of program state are shared across threads in a multi-threaded
process? (4%) Describe why the rest parts could not be shared? (4%)

(a) Register values

(b) Heap memory
(c) Global variables
(d) Stack memory
• heap and global variables can be shared (4%)
• because each thread can run different part of the code during the execution, so we need
different registers and stacks for local variables and function return values (4%)

9. What are the problems when time quantum of RR becomes too short and too long? (6%)

• too short: the context switch occurs too frequently, resulting in high overhead (3%)
• too long: RR will become a FCFS scheduling algorithm, if a long process comes first, other
processes would wait too long (3%)

10. What is the difference between preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling? (8%)

Operating Systems 2022 Midterm Exam

Operating Systems 2022 Midterm Exam 3

• non-preemptive: the OS can not interrupt a process if it is under its CPU burst. CPU
scheduling can only be performed when a running process is terminated or switched to the
waiting state (4%)
• preemptive: the OS can interrupt a process even if it is under its CPU burst. Besides
a running process is terminated or switched to the waiting state, scheduling can also be
performed when context switch happens or a process is switching from waiting state to ready
state (4%)

11. What are the three multi-threading mapping models for user-level threads and kernel-level threads.
(6%) What are the purposes of process contention scope (PCS) and system contention scope
(SCS) scheduling (6%)
• – many-to-one (2%)
– one-to-one (2%)
– many-to-many (2%)
• – PCS: thread library schedules user-level threads for mapping the kernel-level threads
(3%)
– SCS: OS schedules kernel-level threads for running on processors or cores (3%)

12. The following processes are being scheduled using a preemptive, priority-based, round-robin
scheduling algorithm. Each process is assigned a numerical priority, with a higher number
indicating a higher relative priority. The scheduler will execute the highest priority process. For
processes with the same priority, a round-robin scheduler will be used with a time quantum of 10
units. If a process is preempted by a higher-priority process, the preempted process is placed at
the end of the queue.
Process Priority Burst Arrival
P1 8 15 0
P2 3 20 0
P3 4 15 20
P4 4 20 25
P5 5 5 45
(a) Show the scheduling order of the processes using a Gantt chart. (5%)
(b) What is the waiting time for each process? (5%)
• Gantt chart: (5%)

• waiting time:
– P1 : 0
– P2 : 55
– P3 : 10
– P4 : 15
– P5 : 0

13. Using the program shown below, what are the outputs of this program? (5%)
The outputs are: (5%, get 3% if the numbers are correct) CHILD: 0 CHILD: -2 CHILD: -8 CHILD:
-18 CHILD: -32 PARENT: 0 PARENT: 2 PARENT: 4 PARENT: 6 PARENT: 8

Operating Systems 2022 Midterm Exam

Operating Systems 2022 Midterm Exam 4

{0, 2, 4, 6, 8};

Operating Systems 2022 Midterm Exam