CIS 303a - Computer Architecture

Review for Second Test

The following questions are provided to help you study for the second test. Do not expect to see these exact questions on the test.

1. What are some basic services performed by an operating system?
   
   
2. Why are device drivers considered part of an OS?
   
   
3. What is the economy of using an OS to provide services like file and print service?
   
   
4. What does it mean when the text says that an OS will allocate resources to processes?
   
   
5. What is an interrupt? Why does such a thing exist?
   
   
6. What is another common name for the command layer of an OS?
   
   
7. Which layer of an OS manages the housekeeping of the system?
   
   
8. Which OS layer is called the kernel?
   
   
9. When an OS does not support true multitasking, what can it do to simulate running two or more processes simultaneously?
   
   
10. What is the difference between real resources and virtual resources?
    
    
11. What does it mean to say that a resource has been committed to a process? What should be done when the process concludes its run?
    
    
12. What is a hypervisor?
    
    
13. What are process control blocks? What information is found in them?
    
    
14. Why should a process queue be searched when a user logs off a system?
    
    
15. What state is a thread in when it is created? What state does it enter when it is dispatched?
    
    
16. What state would a thread enter when an interrupt occurs?
    
    
17. If a priority-based scheduler is being used, which process would be given control of the CPU if we are using first come, first served priority? What if we are using explicit priority?
    
    
18. Which memory storage method stores the most significant byte of an object in the lowest addressed memory location allocated to it?
    
    
19. A process can be divided into pages. What are the memory locations called that hold these pages?
    
    
20. When pages are saved to temporary files on a hard drive, what are those files called?
    
    
21. Which section of memory is an OS usually loaded in?
    
    
22. A process may assume that it is loaded into the lowest possible memory address. When this does not happen, how is an offset used to translate instructions coded in that process?
    
    
23. What are the four goals the text sets for multitasking?
    
    
24. What do we call the sections of memory that are allocated in a multitasking OS?
    
    
25. How does memory fragmentation occur?
    
    
26. What is memory compaction? How is it more useful than garbage collection?
    
    
27. When a process is loaded into non-contiguous partitions, how many offsets will that process have?
    
    
28. What do we say has occurred when a process looks for something and finds it in RAM? What do we call it when the object is in a swap file instead?
    
    
29. What do we call a page in memory that has been chosen to be moved to a swap file? What criteria might be used to make such a choice?
    
    
30. What do we call the File Management System layer that is closest to the hardware? What is the layer closest to the user called?
    
    
31. What is the difference between a file and a folder? What is another name for a folder?
    
    
32. What are some of the time stamps that might be associated with a file?
    
    
33. What was the 8.3 format for filenames?
    
    
34. What does the list permission allow use to do with a file?
    
    
35. What does the modify permission let us do with a file? How is it different from the change permission?
    
    
36. What is the current directory, with regard to a GUI tool like Windows Explorer?
    
    
37. What is a fully qualified reference, with regard to a particular file?
    
    
38. What kind of OSs use slashes in file paths? What kind use backslashes?
    
    
39. Microsoft uses shortcuts as quick ways to find and execute a file. What are similar objects called in UNIX systems?
    
    
40. What is a File Allocation Unit? What is another name for it?
    
    
41. What are two things an FMS must check about a file before it will open the file for us?
    
    
42. When we are done working on a file, what does the FMS do before deallocating buffers it used for the process?
    
    
43. In a Windows system, what is actually done when we delete a file?
    
    
44. What are the three classic access controls assigned for files in a UNIX system?