exam 4 chapter 11 Flashcards
provides a convenient interface for users and applications to access computer hardware components
An operating system (OS)
is the method by which an OS stores, organizes, and manages access to files on a storage device (such as a hard drive)
A file system
File systems have the following objectives
Provide a convenient interface for users and applications to open and save files
Provide an efficient method to organize space on a drive
Provide a hierarchical filing method to store files
Provide an indexing system for fast retrieval of files
Provide secure access to files for authorized users
interacts with the file system
The user interface
on a disk drive is divided into sectors
Storage space
Storage space
Sectors are grouped to make a cluster (or block)
A Cluster is the smallest amount of space that can be occupied by a file
A disk’s cluster size is selected when the disk
is formatted
If you know that that you’re going to store many files under 2K bytes, choose
a smaller cluster size when you format
The formatting process groups sectors into
clusters and maps all disk clusters for fast access
Most file systems organize files in a hierarchy of
folders or directories
Top of the hierarchy is called the
“root”
The root often represents a
disk drive or other mass storage drive
Most file systems include an indexing system that enables users to search for a
file based on all or part of a filename
maintains a database that’s updated as files are created
The indexing system
controls (permissions) can be used to allow only authorized users to access certain files or folder
A file system’s access
can be used to secure OS files from accidental corruption or deletion
Access controls
Most current OSs include access controls except
Older DOS and Windows FAT16 and FAT 32 don’t support file and folder permissions
is a program that is loaded into memory and run by the CPU
A process
Can be an application or a program that communicates with and provides services to other processes (called a “service” in Windows and a “daemon” in Linux)
a process
allow your computer and applications to perform tasks they otherwise couldn’t
Network services
An OS can run many processes at the same time by using
multitasking
A computer multitasks by using a method called
time slicing
occurs when a CPU’s computing cycles are divided between more than one process
time slicing
Two types of multitasking
Preemptive and cooperative
