Operating Systems Examination Quiz

The purpose of an operating system is to manage computer hardware and software resources and provide common services for computer programs. Modern operating systems have characteristics such as multitasking, multi-user, multiprocessing, and virtual memory.

Scheduling is the process of determining which process to run when. FCFS is a non-preemptive scheduling algorithm where the process that arrives first is executed first. For example, if processes P1, P2, and P3 arrive in that order, they will be executed in the same order, i.e., P1, P2, P3.

Deadlock is a situation in which two or more competing actions are each waiting for the other to finish, preventing any from finishing. The conditions for deadlock are mutual exclusion, hold and wait, no preemption, and circular wait.

Multiple partition allocation is a memory management technique where the main memory is divided into fixed-size partitions to accommodate multiple processes. For example, in a system with 4 partitions, processes P1, P2, P3, and P4 can each occupy one partition.

Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication. It involves converting ordinary text (plaintext) into unintelligible text (ciphertext) and vice versa. An example is the encryption of sensitive data such as credit card information during online transactions.