CS414 Prelim #1 Study Guide      Fall 2000

ROOMS

• The exam will take place in the following rooms.  please check this space again on Monday to go to the room where you belong (alphabetical)

FORMAT

• Answer questions with short answers, solve problems
• Closed notes, closed book

PREPARATION

• Review lecture notes
• Review homeworks (#1,2) and solutions
• Review handouts
• Study textbook, chapters 1-7, except sections 1.6-1.7, 3.6, 3.8, 4.6, 5.6.2-5.6.4, 6.8-6.9, 7.5-7.8

SUBJECTS

• OS functions
• Processes and threads
• How OSs support processes and threads
• Scheduling
• Synchronization
• Definition of deadlocks and identification of conditions of deadlocks

KNOW WHAT THE FOLLOWING MEAN AND WHY THEY ARE USEFUL OR IMPORTANT

• PCB, TCB
• State diagram and each of the states
• Transitions between states
• ULT, KLT, hybrid approaches
• OS functions
• System calls
• Interrupts, how they happen, how they are handled
• Protection
• User area, OS area, address space
• Critical section (CS), CS requirements
• Peterson and Bakery Algorithms
• Interrupt-based solutions
• OS-based solutions
• Semaphores, their characteristics and operations on them
• Producer-consumer and other sync problems
• Scheduling disciplines (optimal and/or efficient)
• Scheduling mechanisms

UNDERSTAND THE TRADEOFFS

• Preemptive vs non-preemptive scheduling
• ULT vs KLT vs hybrid
• Semaphores vs spin locks vs monitors
• Interrupt disabling vs other CS mechanisms

BE ABLE TO USE OR DO OR RECOGNIZE THE FOLLOWING

• P/wait and V/signal operations
• different scheduling algorithms
• conditions for deadlocks
• requirements for CS