Operating System Interview Questions and Answers
1. What is an Operating System?
An Operating System (OS) is system software that acts as an interface between the user and hardware. It
manages hardware resources and provides services for computer programs.
2. What are the main functions of an OS?
- Process Management
- Memory Management
- File System Management
- Device Management
- Security and Protection
- User Interface
3. What is a Process?
A process is a program in execution. It includes the program code, program counter, registers, and variables.
4. What is the difference between Process and Thread?
Process: Independent, has separate memory, more overhead.
Thread: Lightweight, shares memory with process, less overhead.
5. What is a Deadlock?
A deadlock is a situation where a group of processes are blocked because each process is holding a
resource and waiting for another resource held by another process.
6. Necessary conditions for deadlock?
1. Mutual Exclusion
2. Hold and Wait
3. No Preemption
4. Circular Wait
7. What is a Thread?
A thread is the smallest unit of CPU execution. Multiple threads can exist within the same process and share
resources like memory.
8. What is Scheduling? Name some algorithms.
Scheduling is how the OS decides which process runs when.
Algorithms: FCFS, SJF, Round Robin, Priority, Multilevel Queue
9. What is Virtual Memory?
A memory management technique that gives an application the impression of contiguous memory, possibly
fragmented and partially on disk.
10. What is Paging and Segmentation?
Paging: Memory divided into fixed-size pages.
Segmentation: Memory divided into variable-size logical segments.
11. What is a Context Switch?
Saving the state of a running process so that another process can execute.
12. Kernel Mode vs User Mode?
Kernel Mode: Full hardware access.
User Mode: Restricted access, can't access hardware directly.
13. What is a System Call?
A system call allows a user-level process to request a service from the OS.
14. What is Swapping?
Swapping is moving processes between disk and memory to manage space.
15. What is Thrashing?
Thrashing occurs when the OS spends more time swapping than executing.
16. Monolithic Kernel vs Microkernel?
Monolithic: All services in kernel space.
Microkernel: Minimal core in kernel space, others in user space.
17. What is Demand Paging?
Pages are loaded into memory only when needed.
18. What is a Race Condition?
Occurs when multiple threads/processes access shared data and try to change it at the same time.
19. What is Semaphore?
A semaphore is a variable used to control access to a common resource in concurrent systems.
20. Types of Operating Systems?
- Batch OS
- Time-Sharing OS
- Distributed OS
- Real-Time OS
- Network OS
- Mobile OS
