Modern Operating Systems Vocabulary Flashcards

These flashcards cover essential vocabulary and definitions related to modern operating systems as discussed in the lecture.

Dining Philosophers Problem

A classic synchronization problem that illustrates the challenges of resource sharing among concurrent processes.

Parent Process

A process that creates one or more child processes.

Process

An instance of a program in execution.

Thread

The smallest unit of processing that can be scheduled by the operating system.

Mobile Operating System

An operating system optimized for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

Server

A computer or program that provides services to other computers or clients over a network.

Algorithm

A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing a task.

Interrupt

A signal that informs the processor to stop its current activities and execute a specific process.

Load Balancing

Distributing workloads across multiple computing resources to ensure optimal resource use.

Multiprocessor

A computer system with multiple processors that can manage multiple tasks simultaneously.

Best Fit

A memory allocation strategy that assigns the smallest available block of memory that will satisfy the request.

Balancing

Distributing resources or workloads to maintain performance efficiency.

Stack

A linear data structure that follows the Last In First Out (LIFO) principle.

Canary

A technique used in programming to detect buffer overflows.

Code Signing

The process of digitally signing a program to verify its authenticity and integrity.

Circular Buffer

A data structure that uses a single fixed-size buffer as if it were connected end-to-end.

Page Cache

Memory used to cache pages of data for faster access.

+Pointer

A reference or indicator within programming that points to a particular data location.

Linux

An open-source operating system model that is widely used for servers and desktops.

Digital Signature

A cryptographic way to verify the authenticity and integrity of a message.

Long Term Memory

The part of the memory system responsible for storing information over extended periods.

Core Dump

A file containing a record of the memory image of a running process.

Fat 32

A file system format introduced in 1996 that is compatible with both Windows and other operating systems.

Meltdown

A vulnerability in the CPU that can allow unauthorized reading of memory.

Parallelism

The simultaneous execution of multiple computations.

Trojan Horse

Malicious software that pretends to be harmless to trick users into executing it.

Clock

A device that provides timing and synchronization for processing.

Cloud

A model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources.

Gang Scheduling

A scheduling discipline used to ensure multiple threads run on multiple processors simultaneously.

Out of Memory Killer

A mechanism in operating systems that terminates processes when the system is critically low on memory.

Input Device

Hardware used to provide data and control signals to a computer.

Replacement Algorithm

A mechanism used to decide which memory pages to swap out in order to free up space.