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Assignment 3: Operating System Design & Processes
| Assignment Day | September 02, 2009 |
| Due Date | September 10, 2009 (Thursday) |
| Email (time stamp) and Typed Hardcopy is required. |
Question 1 (10 pts)
Please read the 1992 Andrew Tanenbaum & Linus Torvald debate (see link).
- What was Tanenbaum's initial complaint(s) about the Linus kernel?
- What problem(s) did Linus have with MINIX?
- What is the conclusion - what is better - micro- or monolithic kernels (and why)?
Bonus 1: read the next link and the next link of the above and find out open source and its contributors, interesting read.
Bonus 2: Read the 2006/2008 (slash dot) and Part II of the debate - it is an ever ending debate.
Question 2 (5 pts)
Consider 4 states of the transition and process states diagram of fig 3.2 (i.e., exclude the two states: new, and terminated) and only consider ready, waiting and ready state and observe that there are only 4 transitions ("Interrupt", "Scheduler Dispatch", "I/O or event wait" and "IO or event completion"). Can any of missing transitions occur (i.e., "from waiting to running" and / or "waiting to blocked")? Be sure to argue why or why not for each transition.
Question 3 (5 pts)
Why are part of interrupt handlers written in assembly language (give at least two reasons)?
Question 4 (5 pts)
How is 'memory' organized in the Dijkstra's "THE" system?