ICT Operating System Fundamentals 5

Question 1

What is the difference between a process and a program?

Accepted Answer

A program is static code on disk; a process is a program in execution with associated resources

Answer

A program is a passive set of instructions stored on disk, while a process is an active instance of execution with its own state.

Question 2

Which system call is used to wait for a child process to finish in Unix?

Accepted Answer

wait()

Answer

The wait() system call causes the parent process to block until one of its child processes terminates.

Question 3

What is 'demand paging'?

Accepted Answer

Loading pages into memory only when they are actually needed during execution

Answer

Demand paging loads a page from disk into memory only when the process accesses it, triggering a page fault.

Question 4

In a file system, what is the purpose of a 'journal'?

Accepted Answer

To record pending metadata changes so the file system can recover after a crash

Answer

A journaling file system records changes to a log before applying them, enabling recovery to a consistent state after crashes.

Question 5

Which of the following best describes the 'banker's algorithm'?

Accepted Answer

A deadlock avoidance algorithm that checks if resource allocation leads to a safe state

Answer

The banker's algorithm grants resource requests only if the resulting state is safe (i.e., all processes can eventually complete).

ICT - Information Communication Technology Practice Test