Operating System Concepts Lecture Notes Review

These flashcards cover key concepts from the lecture notes on operating systems, including definitions, roles, and characteristics relevant to processes, memory management, interprocess communication, and more.

What is a process?

A program in execution, which progresses in a sequential manner.

What are the components of a process in memory?

The program code (text section), current activity (program counter, processor registers), stack (temporary data), data section (global variables), and heap (dynamically allocated memory).

What is the role of a linker in operating system concepts?

A linker combines object files into a single executable file and brings in libraries.

What does the abbreviation 'ABI' stand for, and what does it define?

Application Binary Interface; it defines how binary code components can interface for a given operating system.

What are the five states a process can be in?

New, Running, Waiting, Ready, and Terminated.

What is a Process Control Block (PCB)?

A data structure that contains information about a process, including state, program counter, CPU registers, and memory-management info.

What is the difference between blocking and non-blocking operations in interprocess communication?

Blocking operations wait for an event to occur, while non-blocking operations proceed without waiting.

What is Amdahl’s Law?

It identifies performance gains from adding additional cores to an application with both serial and parallel components.

What is the primary function of signals in UNIX systems?

To notify a process that a particular event has occurred.

What are user threads and kernel threads?

User threads are managed by a user-level thread library, while kernel threads are managed and supported by the kernel.