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Operating Systems > Module One > Flashcards

Module One Flashcards

1
Q

What is an Operating System?

A

It’s a layer of software that provides user programs with a better, simpler, cleaner, model of the computer and handles all the resources.

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2
Q

What is the shell?

A

The program users interact with that is text based (aka: a command-line interpretor that lets Linux and UNIX users control their OS).

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3
Q

What is a GUI (Graphical User Interface)?

A

A digital interface in which a user interacts with graphical components such as icons, buttons, and menus.

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4
Q

Are the GUI and shell apart of the OS?

A

No, they are not but they rely on the OS to work.

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5
Q

What are the two modes of operation?

A

Kernel & User Mode

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6
Q

What is Kernel Mode?

A

When there is complete access to all of the hardware and can execute any instruction the machine is capable of executing.

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7
Q

What is User Mode?

A

When only a subset of the machine instructions are available.

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8
Q

What subsets are unavailable during user mode?

A

-Control of the machine
-Determination of security boundaries
-I/O (Input/Output)

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9
Q

What are the two essentially unrelated functions that an OS provides?

A

-Providing application programmers a clean abstract set of resources instead of the messy hardware ones

-Managing hardware resources.

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10
Q

What is the architecture of an OS?

A

Instruction set, memory organization, I/O, and bus structure

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11
Q

What is SATA (serial ATA)?

A

A computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives.

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12
Q

What is a disk driver?

A

Software that handles the hardware and provides an interface to read and write disk blocks, without getting the details.

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13
Q

What is the job of an OS?

A

To create good abstractions and then implement and manage the abstract objects thus created

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14
Q

What does a good OS do?

A

Turn awful hardware into beautiful abstractions.

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15
Q

What is multiplexing?

A

A method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. (for example: same hardware and software being used by two or more people.)

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16
Q

What is a SSD (Solid State Drive)?

A

Drives based upon Flash memory and electronic rather than mechanical.

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17
Q

Who created the first true digital computer?

A

Charles Babbage (English Mathematician). (but it was non-functioning)

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18
Q

Who created the first digital functioning computer?

A

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry

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19
Q

When was the turning stone known as the transistor created?

A

mid 1950s

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20
Q

What is a mainframe?

A

The large cabinet that held the central processing unit (CPU) of early computer systems.

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21
Q

Why was a batch system created?

A

To avoid wasted time and to collect an array of jobs in the input room and then read them onto a magnetic tape using a small relatively inexpensive computer.

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22
Q

What computer line was the first to use ICs (Integrated Circuits)?

A

IBM 360

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23
Q

What is multiprogramming?

A

The running of two or more programs or sequences of instructions simultaneously by a computer with more than one central processor.

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24
Q

What is spooling (Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On line)?

A

the practice of holding data in temporary storage for execution by another device or program

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25
Q

What is timesharing?

A

Each user has their own terminal

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26
Q

What was the first general-purpose timesharing system?

A

CTSS (Compatible Time Sharing System)

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27
Q

What is MULTICS (MULTIplexed Information and Computing Service)?

A

Is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.

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28
Q

What happened to MULTICS?

A

It brought out great ideas but was way ahead of its time and used the PL/I programming language which was already years late and barely worked at all. Leaving GE, MIT and BELL labs to drop out of it and Honeywell to buy it and use it until Oct 2000 (30 yrs).

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29
Q

What is cloud computing?

A

What came after MULTICS, where relatively small computers are connected to servers in vast and distant data centers where all the computing is done with the local computer mostly handling the user interface.

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30
Q

How was the UNIX operating system created?

A

By one of the computer scientists at Bell labs (Ken thompson) finding a small PDP-7 minicomputer and set out to write a stripped down one user version of MULTICS.

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31
Q

What were the two (incompatible) versions created out of UNIX seeing as the code was made public?

A

System V (from AT&T)
BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)

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32
Q

What is POSIX?

A

The standard for UNIX created by IEEE so that you could write programs that could run on any UNIX system.

A minimal system-call interface that conformant UNIX systems must support.

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33
Q

What is MINUX?

A

A small clone of UNIX, to which now MINUX 3 has the ability to detect and replace faulty or even crushed modules on the fly without a reboot and without disturbing running programs.

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34
Q

Why was Linux created?

A

To create a free production version of MINIX (Created by Linus Torvalds-Finnish).

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35
Q

What does Linux do today?

A

Powers a huge share of servers in data centers and forms the basis for Android.

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36
Q

What did Intel do with MINIX?

A

Adapted it for a secretive management processor embedded in virtually of its chipsets since 2008. (Meaning you can run MINUX as long as you have an Intel CPU)

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37
Q

What is LSI (Large scale integration) circuits?

A

Chips containing thousands of transistors on a square centimeter of silcon.

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38
Q

What did Intel ask of Gary Kildall after creating the first 8bit cpu?

A

To create an operating system for it.

To which Kildall built a controller to hook up Shugharts Associates 8 inch floppy to the 8080 (8bit cpu), thus creating the first microcomputer with a disk.

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39
Q

What else did Kildall do?

A

Wrote a disk-based operating system called CP/M (Control Management for Computers).

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40
Q

When was the IBM PC created?

A

Early 1980s, which prompted Bill Gates to be asked to create an OS for it.

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41
Q

What did Bill Gates offer IBM?

A

A DOS/BASIC package.

Basic: Gates interpretor

DOS: Disc Operating System

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42
Q

Under the fledgling company, Microsoft, Gates and Tim Paterson (creator of DOS) did what?

A

Revised the system and renamed it MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk operating system).

43
Q

What came of Job’s want to create an Apple computer with GUI?

A

Lisa (Which failed severely commercially and was too expensive)

Apple Macintosh (which was a huge success due to ease of use or userfriendly, and its cost)

44
Q

What is macOS, plainly?

A

A UNIX based operating system with a distinctive interface.

45
Q

What did Microsoft create after seeing the success of the Apple Macintosh?

A

Windows, the successor to MS-DOS, and a GUI based system.

It was more of a shell until Windows 95 which added many operating system features using MS-DOS system only for booting and running old MS-DOS systems.

46
Q

What happens in a network operating system?

A

the users are aware of the existence of multiple computers and can log in to remote machines and copy files from one machine to another.

47
Q

What is a distributed operating system?

A

is one that appears to its users as a traditional uniprocessor system, even though it is actually composed of multiple processors

48
Q

When did the first real smartphone appear?

A

With the Nokia N9000 in the Mid 1900s

49
Q

When was ‘smartphone’ coined?

A

1977 by Ericsson for its GS88 ‘Penelope’ phone.

50
Q

What is the brain of the computer?

A

The processor (CPU)

51
Q

What does the CPU do?

A

Fetches instructions from memory and executes them.

52
Q

What is the cycle of the CPU?

A
  1. Fetches instructions from memory
  2. Executes them
  3. Decode it to determine type and operands
  4. Fetch, decode, execute subsequent instructions
53
Q

What do all CPUs contain?

A

Registers to hold key variables and temporary results.

54
Q

What is the program counter?

A

It contains the memory address of the next instruction to be fetched

55
Q

What does the computer also have besides general registers?

A

Special registers available to the programmer.

56
Q

What is the stack pointer (special register)?

A

It points to the top of the current stack in memory.

57
Q

What does the PSW (program status word) register hold?

A

This register contains the condition code bits, which are set by comparison instructions, the CPU priority, the mode (user or kernel), and various other control bits

58
Q

What is the architecture?

A

Everything that is visible to the software such as the instructions and the registers.

59
Q

What is micro-architecture?

A

The implementation of the architecture.

60
Q

What is in the micro-architecture?

A
  • data and instruction caches
    -translation lookaside buffers
    -branch predictors
    -the pipelined datapath,
    -many other elements that should not normally be visible to the operating system or any other software.
61
Q

What is a pipeline?

A

A series of data processing elements that are connected in order, with the output of one element serving as the input for the next.

62
Q

What happens in a superscalar CPU?

A

Two or more instructions are fetched at once, decoded, and dumped into a holding buffer until they can be executed.

63
Q

What is a system call?

A

a routine that allows a computer program to request a service from the operating system’s kernel

64
Q

What is Moore’s law?

A

The number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months.

65
Q

What is multithreading (or hyperthreading as Intel calls it)?

A

It allows the CPU to hold the state of two different threads and then switch back and forth on a nanosecond time scale.

66
Q

What is a thread?

A

A kind of lightweight process which in turn is a running program.

67
Q

What is a core?

A

a small processing unit within a computer’s Central Processing Unit (CPU) that is responsible for executing instructions.

68
Q

How many cores can you have within a CPU?

A

4, 8, or more. Some have hundreds

69
Q

What is a GPU?

A

A processor with thousands of tiny cores.

70
Q

What is main memory divided up into?

A

Cache lines

71
Q

What are cache lines?

A

the smallest amount of data that can be mapped into a cache.

72
Q

What does an L1 Cache do?

A

usually feeds decoded instructions into the CPU’s execution engine

73
Q

What does a L2 Cache do?

A

It holds several megabytes of recently used memory words

74
Q

What is RAM (Random Access Memory)?

A

The main memory and workhorse of the system.

75
Q

What is ROM (read only memory)?

A

a type of non-volatile memory that stores data permanently on a chip, even when the computer is turned off

76
Q

What is EEPROM (electronically erasable PROM)?

A

a read-only memory whose contents can be erased and reprogrammed using a pulsed voltage.

77
Q

What is flash memory?

A

a long-life and non-volatile storage chip that is widely used in embedded systems. It can keep stored data and information even when the power is off. It can be electrically erased and reprogrammed.

78
Q

What is BIOS (Basic input/output system)?

A

a type of firmware that’s usually installed on a computer and loads before the operating system. BIOS performs start-up procedures that check system devices and load the operating system. It also manages data flow between the computer’s operating system (OS) and attached devices, such as the hard disk, video adapter, keyboard, mouse, and printer. BIOS contains instructions on how to control various hardware components such as hard disks, keyboards, and display screens.

79
Q

What is CMOS memory?

A

It is a battery-powered memory chip that effortlessly holds the initialization data. The BIOS uses this data to turn on the device, i.e., during the bootup process.

80
Q

Where do SSDs hold data?

A

In flash memory

81
Q

What is persistent memory?

A

a type of solid-state computer memory that can retain data even when the power is off

82
Q

What do I/O devices consist of?

A

A controller
Device itself

83
Q

What is the controller of an I/O device?

A

A chip or set of chips that physically control the device.

84
Q

What is SATA?

A

it’s a computer bus interface that connects storage devices like hard drives and solid-state drives (SSDs) to a computer’s motherboard.

85
Q

What is SATA currently?

A

The standard type of hard disk on many computers.

86
Q

What is a DMA (Direct Memory Access)?

A

Direct memory access is a feature that allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system memory independently of the central processing unit.

87
Q

What is a PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Bus?

A

a high-speed hardware interface that allows users to attach peripheral components to a computer’s motherboard

88
Q

What is a shared bus architecture?

A

multiple devices use the same wires to transfer data.

89
Q

What is a parallel bus architecture?

A

a peripheral interface in computer architecture that transfers data in parallel using many wires bundled together

90
Q

What is a process?

A

A program in execution

A process is fundamentally a container that holds all the information needed to run a program.

91
Q

What is address space?

A

a list of memory locations from 0 to some maximum, which the process can read and write.

92
Q

What does the address space contain?

A

the executable program, the program’s data, and its stack.

93
Q

What is a process table?

A

In many operating systems, all the information about each process, other than the contents of its own address space, is stored in this operating system table

94
Q

What is a core image?

A

a technology that analyzes and processes images for video and still images, providing high-performance processing

95
Q

What is the command interpreter?

A

a system software that understands and executes commands that are entered interactively by a human or from an another program.

96
Q

What is a child process?

A

a process created by another process, called the parent process, in computer programming

97
Q

What is inter-process communication?

A

Related processes that are cooperating to get some job done often need to communicate with one another and synchronize their activities. Such as this.

98
Q

What is an address space?

A

a range of virtual addresses that an operating system assigns to a user or program

99
Q

What is a special file?

A

Special files are provided in order to make I/O devices look like files

100
Q

What are the two kind of special files?

A

Block Special Files
Character Special Files

101
Q

What are Block Special Files?

A

Block special files are used to model devices that consist of a collection of randomly addressable blocks, such as SSDs and disks.

102
Q

What are Character Special Files?

A

Character special files are used to model printers, keyboards, mice, and other devices that accept or output a character stream.

103
Q

What is a pipe?

A

sort of pseudofile that can be used to connect two processes

104
Q
A

Operating Systems (2 decks)

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