Chapter 2 Homework Questions

Answer the following questions. (2 points each - 24 points)

1. What is a process and what are the four principal ways they are created? A process is an
executing program. There are four principal events that cause processes to be created:
1. System initialization. 2. Execution of a process creation system call by a running
process. 3. A user request to create a new process. 4. Initiation of a batch job.

2. What is a daemon? Processes that stay in the background to handle some activity such as
e-mail, Web pages, news, printing, and so on are called daemons.


3. How can processes be terminated? Sooner or later the new process
will terminate, usually due to one of the following conditions:
1. Normal exit (voluntary).
2. Error exit (voluntary).
3. Fatal error (involuntary).
4. Killed by another process (involuntary).
Most processes terminate because they have done their work. When a compiler
has compiled the program given to it, the compiler executes a system call to
tell the operating system that it is finished. This call is exit in UNIX and ExitProcess
in Windows.

4. Explain the three process states? 1. Running (actually using the CPU at that instant).
2. Ready (runnable; temporarily stopped to let another process run).
3. Blocked (unable to run until some external event happens).

5. What is a process table and what type of information does it contain? To implement the
process model, the operating system maintains a table (an array of structures), called the
process table, with one entry per process. (Some authors call these entries process control
blocks.) This entry contains important information about the process' state, including its
program counter, stack pointer, memory allocation, the status of its open files, its accounting
and scheduling information, and everything else about the process that must be saved when
the process is switched from running to ready or blocked state so that it can be restarted
later as if it had never been stopped.

6. Explain the concept of multithreading and give an example. What threads add to the
process model is to allow multiple executions to take place in the same process environment,
to a large degree independent of one another. Having multiple threads running in parallel in
one process is analogous to having multiple processes running in parallel in one computer.
The term multithreading is also used to describe the situation of allowing multiple threads in
the same process. For example, when a thread performs a system call to read from the
keyboard, it is blocked until input is typed.

7. Explain mutual exclusion and critical region, and how they are related. Mutual exclusion
is a way to prohibit more than one process from reading and writing the shared data at the
same time. Sometimes a process has to access shared memory or files, or do other critical
things that can lead to races. That part of the program where the shared memory is accessed
is called the critical region or critical section. If we could arrange matters such that no two
processes were ever in their critical regions at the same time, we could avoid races.
Although this requirement avoids race conditions, it is not sufficient for having parallel
processes cooperate correctly and efficiently using shared data. We need four conditions to
hold to have a good solution:
1. No two processes may be simultaneously inside their critical regions.
2. No assumptions may be made about speeds or the number of CPUs.
3. No process running outside its critical region may block other processes.
4. No process should have to wait forever to enter its critical region.

8. Compare and contrast semaphores, monitors, and message passing. A semaphore can be
used to ensure that one section of code is run before another section, even when theyre in
different processes. Monitors encapsulate data structures that are not externally accessible.
A monitor can have condition variables that can be used to add additional synchronization
behavior beyond basic mutual exclusion. Message passing involves context switching and
copying the messages. The wait and signal operations on condition variables in a monitor are
similar to P and V operations on counting semaphores. A wait statement can block a
process's execution, while a signal statement can cause another process to be unblocked.
However, there are some differences between them. When a process executes a P operation,
it does not necessarily block that process because the counting semaphore may be greater
than zero. In contrast, when a wait statement is executed, it always blocks the process. When
a task executes a V operation on a semaphore, it either unblocks a task waiting on that
semaphore or increments the semaphore counter if there is no task to unlock.

9. Compare and contrast the scheduling algorithms used in batch systems. First Come First
Served -This scheduling method is used on Batch-Systems, it is NON-PREEMPTIVE. It
implements just one queue which holds the tasks in order they come in. The order the tasks
arrive is very important for the Turnaround-Time:
Task1(24) Task2(6) Task3(6)
avg. Turnaround-Time = (24 + 30 + 36) / 3 = 30 time units (this assumes all tasks arrive at
time 0)
Task1(6) Task2(6) Task3(24)
avg. Turnaround-Time = (6 +12 +36) / 3 = 18 time units (this assumes all tasks arrive at time
0)
Strengths:
-Simple
-Fair
Problems:
-Convoy Effect
-Order of task arrival is very important for average Turnaround time


10. What is a real-time system, and what are the two types? Real-time systems have different
properties than interactive systems, and thus different scheduling goals. They are
characterized by having deadlines that must or at least should be met. For example, if a
computer is controlling a device that produces data at a regular rate, failure to run the data-
collection process on time may result in lost data. Real-time systems are generally
categorized as hard real time, meaning there are absolute deadlines that must be met, or else,
and soft real time, meaning that missing an occasional deadline is undesirable, but
nevertheless tolerable.

11. What is the difference between turnaround time and response time? Turnaround time -
total time between submission of a process and its completion.
Response time - amount of time it takes from when a request was submitted until the first
response is produced.


12. What is a race condition? A race condition occurs when two or more threads can access
shared data and they try to change it at the same time.

Chapter 2 problems. Answer problems 1, 3, and 37 at the end of chapter 2 on pages 170-
173. (problem 1 is 2 points and #s 3 and 37 are 3 points each - 8 total).