DISTANCE LEARNING EXAMMINATION
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College Exam inati ons 2025
DIPLOMA/CERTIFICATE IN INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
DICT/CICT 2920/1920: OPERATING SYSTEMS
Year: 2025 TIME: 11/2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer question one and any other three questions
QUESTION ONE (30 MARKS)
a) Define the following terms as used in operating systems (5 marks)
i. Operating system
ii. Device driver
iii. Batch processing
iv. Graphical user interface(GUI)
v. Spooling
b) State the four factors to consider when choosing an operating system (4 marks)
c) Differentiate between a process and a program in relation to operating systems
(2 marks)
d) Operating system offers a number of services among them is security. Differentiate
between authentication and authorization (2 marks)
e) Files are allocated disk spaces by operating system. Name three allocation mechanism
used by the operating system to allocate disk space to files (3 marks)
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f) A computer must have a way of detecting the arrival of any type of input. There are
two ways that this can happen, known as polling and interrupts. Differentiate between
the methods (2 marks)
g) Explain four functions of an operating system (4 marks)
h) Explain the concept of threads in operating systems development stating its importance
(3 marks)
i) Using a well labelled diagram explain the process life cylcle (5 marks)
QUESTION TWO (20 MARKS)
a) Explain the following terms as used in memory management (4 marks)
i. Swapping
ii. Paging
iii. Segmentation
iv. Virtual memory
b) What are the four conditions necessary to create a deadlock (4 marks)
c) Discuss three computing benefits of distributed systems over non-distributed systems
(6 marks)
d) Using priority based scheduling algorithm, calculate the average waiting time of the
following system (6 marks)
Process Arrival Time Execute Time Priority
P0 0 5 1
P1 1 3 2
P2 2 8 1
P3 3 6 3
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QUESTION THREE (20 MARKS)
a) Briefly explain the following program threats in relation to computer security
(4 marks)
i. Trojan horse
ii. Trap door
iii. Logic bomb
iv. Virus
b) Discuss the role of the following scheduler in process control (6 marks)
i. Short-term scheduler
ii. Mid-term scheduler
iii. Long-term scheduler
c) A university department has decided that for ease management, all applications
should run on a central computer server. It has been observed when large numbers
of students simultaneously work on their programming exercise, response time
increases considerably and staring up new programs takes a very long time. The
time to download large data is not affected. Explain the reason(s) for this
slowdown, suggest a remedy (8 marks)
d) Describe the importance of buffering in the I/O subsystem of operating system
(2 marks)
QUESTION FOUR (20 MARKS)
a) Below is a set of processes available for execution in a programmed environment
Process Arrival time Burst time
P0 0 10
P1 1 6
P2 2 2
P3 3 4
P4 4 9
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Schedule the processing using FCFS, SJF, SRTN and RR(t=3) and comment on
your average waiting time (10 marks)
b) Explain the following kinds of transparency in distributed systems (4 marks)
i. Access transparency
ii. Location transparency
iii. Replication transparency
iv. Failure transparency
c) Discuss three properties of an operating system (6 marks)
QUESTION FIVE (20 MARKS)
a) Distinguish between internal fragmentation and external fragmentation in memory
management (4 marks)
b) Operating systems have been evolving over time, describe the evolution properly
stating the specific milestones and innovations at each phase (8 marks)
c) Explain briefly five differences between a process and a thread (8 marks)
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