UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY
ADVANCED OPERATING SYSTEMS
ASSIGNMENT 1
QUESTIONS

1. HOW CAN BUFFERING IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF

COMPUTER SYSTEM?
2. WHAT ARE THE INCONVENIENCES THAT A USER CAN FACE
WHILE INTERACTING WITH A COMPUTER SYSTEM WHICH IS
WITHOUT AN OPERATING SYSTEM?
3. WHAT IS A THREAD? WHAT ARE THE MAJOR DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN A THREAD AND PROCESS?
4. WHAT IS A PROCESS SCHEDULER? STATE THE
CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD PROCESS SCHEDULER?
5. WHAT ARE THE PRIMARY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
NETWORK OPERTING SYSTEMS AND DISTRIBUTED
OPERATING SYSTEM? LIST 5 DIFFERENCES.

INDEX NUMBER:
PS/CSC/17/0064.

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 HOW CAN BUFFERING IMPROVE YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM
If CPU and I/O devices are nearly same at speeds, the buffering helps in making the CPU and the

I/O devices work at full speed in such a way that CPU and the I/O devices never sit idle at any

moment. Normally the CPU is much faster than an input device. In the case the CPU always

faces an empty input buffer and sits idle waiting for the input device which is to read a record

into the buffer. For output, the CPU continues to work at full speed till the output buffer is full

and then it starts waiting. This buffering proves useful for those jobs that have a balance between

computational work and I/O operations.

WHAT ARE THE INCONVINIENCES THAT A USER CAN FACE WHILE INTERACTING

WITH A COMPUTER SYSTEM WHICH IS WITHOUT AN OPERATING SYSTEM?

First of all, the operating system is required component. Thus, without an operating system

computer hardware is only an inactive electronic machine, which is inconvenient to the user for

execution of programs. As the computer hardware or machine understands only the machine

language. It is difficult to develop each and every program in machine language in order to

execute it. Therefore, we can say that without an operating system execution of user program or

to solve user problems is extremely difficult. Without an operating system, there is no means by

which to load programs, other than writing boot loader programs yourself putting it on your disk

that you can boot from and having it load the program you actually want to run. Without an

operating system, there are no device drivers, so the user has to learn how to program the

machine to control the physical hardware. Finally, without an operating system, there is no

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standard file system hence, the users have to learn about disk block how to allocate them and so

forth which is quite inconvenient for the users.

WHAT IS A THREAD? WHAT ARE THE MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THREADS

AND PROCESSES

A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization consisting of a program counter, a stack, and a set of

registers. In other words, a thread is a single sequential flow of control within a program or path

of execution within a process. A process can contain multiple threads. Below are some major

differences between a thread and a process in terms of definition, termination time, creation time,

communication, context switching time, resources, treatment by OS, memory, sharing and

lightweight.

In terms of definition, a thread can be defined as a segment of a process whilst a process can be

defined as a program in execution. With respect to termination time, the process takes more time

to terminate on the other hand, a thread takes less time to load.

A thread takes less time for creation whilst the process takes more time for creation in terms of

creation time. With regards to communication, communication between threads require less time

while communication between processes needs more time compared to threads.

In context switching time, processes take more time for context switching while threads on the

other hand, take less time for context switching. In terms of resources, processes consume more

resources whilst threads consume fewer resources. For treatment by OS, different processes are

treated separately by OS, whilst all the peer threads are treated as a single task by OS. With

memory, the process is mostly isolated whilst threads share memory. In data sharing, processes

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do not share data whilst threads share data with each other. Finally, with respect to lightweight,

the process is not lightweight whilst the thread is lightweight.

WHAT IS A PROCESS SCHEDULER? STATE CHARATERISTICS OF A GOOD PROCESS

SCHEDULER.

The process scheduling is the activity of the process manager that handles the removal of the

running process from the CPU and the selection of another process on the basis of a particular

strategy. The scheduling program which is a system software concerned with scheduling is called

the scheduler (process scheduler) and the algorithm it uses is the scheduling algorithm.

Various criterial or characteristics that help in designing a good scheduling algorithm are:

 CPU Utilization − A scheduling algorithm should be designed so that CPU remains busy

as possible. It should make efficient use of CPU.

 Throughput − Throughput is the amount of work completed in a unit of time. In other

words throughput is the processes executed to number of jobs completed in a unit of

time. The scheduling algorithm must look to maximize the number of jobs processed per

time unit.

 Response time − Response time is the time taken to start responding to the request. A

scheduler must aim to minimize response time for interactive users.

 Turnaround time − Turnaround time refers to the time between the moment of

submission of a job/ process and the time of its completion. Thus how long it takes to

execute a process is also an important factor.

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 Waiting time − It is the time a job waits for resource allocation when several jobs are

competing in multiprogramming system. The aim is to minimize the waiting time.

 Fairness − A good scheduler should make sure that each process gets its fair share of the

CPU.

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 WHAT ARE THE PRIMARY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NETWORK OPERATING

SYSTEM AND DISTRIBUTED OPERATING SYSTEM? LIST 5 DIFFERENCES.

Below are the differences of the networking operating systems and distributed operating system.

No. Network Operating System Distributed Operating System

1 A network operating system is made up of A distributed operating system is an

software and associated protocols that ordinary centralized operating system

allow a set of computer network to be used but runs on multiple independent CPUs.

together.

2 Environment users are aware of Environment users are not aware of

multiplicity of machines. multiplicity of machines.

3 Control over file placement is done It can be done automatically by the

manually by the user. system itself.

4 Performance is badly affected if certain It is more reliable or fault tolerant that

part of the hardware starts malfunctioning. is, distributed operating system

performs even if certain part of the

hardware starts malfunctioning.

5 Remote resources are accessed by either Users access remote resources in the

logging into the desired remote machine or same manner as they access local

transferring data from the remote machine resources.

to user's own machines.

REFERENCES

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1. Omkalammkar999(2019,February 14). What inconveniences can a user face while

interacting with a computer which has no operating system? Brainly.in.

https://brainly.in/question/8178181.

2. OS overview Q&A #4. What inconveniences that a user can face while interacting

with a computer system, which is without an operating system? Tutorial points.

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/operating_system/os_overview_qa4.htm.

3. OS overview Q&A #2. How buffering can improve the performance of a

computer system. Tutorials points.

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/operating_system/os_overview_qa2.htm#:~:text=

Question%3A%20How%20Buffering%20can%20improve,sit%20idle%20at

%20any%20moment.

4. Process vs thread: What’s the difference? Guru 99.

https://www.guru99.com/difference-between-process-and-

thread.html#:~:text=Process%20means%20a%20program%20is,Lightweight%2C

%20whereas%20Threads%20are%20Lightweight.&text=A%20Process%20is

%20mostly%20isolated,share%20data%20with%20each%20other.

5. Operating system-process scheduler. tutorials point.

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/operating_system/os_process_scheduling.htm#:~:

text=The%20process%20scheduling%20is%20the,of%20a

%20Multiprogramming%20operating%20systems.