A-Level 1.2.1 System Software

Explain how an operating system may overcome the problem of physical memory being full.

Memory management in a computer for main memory can use either paging or segmentation. Explain what is meant by ‘segmentation’.

Memory management in a computer for main memory can use either paging or segmentation. Explain what is meant by ‘paging’.

Intensive Care Units in hospitals are for patients in need of round the clock monitoring and support. Computerised systems can be used to monitor patients’ vital signs (temperature, heart rate, blood pressure and breathing). They can then alert medical professionals to any significant changes. These systems usually run on an embedded, real-time, operating system. State …

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One facility of a network operating system is to provide security for users. Explain two other facilities of a network operating system.

See And Believe is a company that specialises in computer-generated imagery (CGI) for films. Producing CGI requires lots of processing power and so the company has a large number of high-performance computers. Explain why See And Believe would use a distributed operating system.

Open source software has grown in popularity over the last few decades. Linux is a popular open source operating system and Windows is a popular closed source operating system. Give three functions of an operating system.

Explain the purpose of scheduling.

Operating systems can use many different scheduling algorithms. State three different scheduling algorithms.

An operating system has to manage a system’s resources. Another job of an operating system is to deal with interrupts. 1. State what is meant by the term ‘interrupt’. 2. Describe what happens in the CPU when it receives an interrupt.