The situation in which two processes each hold a resource the other needs and neither can proceed is called
- A.Thrashing
- B.Deadlock
- C.Spooling
- D.Fragmentation
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, deadlock. Deadlock is the state in which every process in a set is waiting for a resource that another process in the same set is holding, so none of them can ever move forward without the operating system stepping in. It needs mutual exclusion, hold and wait, no pre-emption and circular wait to occur together.
Option A, thrashing, is a different problem: it happens when the system spends nearly all its time swapping pages between disk and memory and almost none doing useful work. Option C, spooling, is a useful technique, not a fault; output meant for a slow device such as a printer is queued on disk so the processor is not held up. Option D, fragmentation, is the scattering of free memory or disk space into small unusable pieces, which wastes space but does not stop processes from running.
Read the full article: Software and Operating Systems: Types, Functions and MCQs
Practice Questions
View allWhich of the following is the core part of an operating system that always remains in main memory?
- A.Shell
- B.Kernel
- C.Compiler
- D.Loader
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The kernel is the central part of the operating system and is the portion that is loaded at boot time and stays resident in main memory for as long as the computer is running.
Read the full explanation →Which type of software is permanently stored on a chip and is required before any other program can run?
- A.Application software
- B.Utility software
- C.Firmware
- D.Freeware
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Firmware is software written permanently into a read only memory chip at the time of manufacture.
Read the full explanation →Which scheduling algorithm allots a fixed time slice to every process in rotation and is therefore used in time sharing systems?
- A.First Come First Served
- B.Shortest Job First
- C.Round Robin
- D.Priority scheduling
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In Round Robin scheduling every ready process is given the processor for a fixed period called the time quantum, and when that period expires the process is moved to the back of the queue and the next one is served.
Read the full explanation →UNIX operating system was developed in 1969 at which organisation?
- A.Bell Laboratories
- B.IBM
- C.Microsoft
- D.Apple
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UNIX was developed in 1969 at Bell Laboratories by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, and it became the model for almost every multi user operating system that followed.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following file systems is used by the Linux operating system?
- A.NTFS
- B.FAT32
- C.ext4
- D.exFAT
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The extended file system family, of which ext4 is the widely used member, was written for Linux and is the default arrangement for storing and naming files on a Linux disk.
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