Learn the fundamentals of operating systems, including process management, memory, and file systems.
An operating system (OS) is software that manages hardware resources and provides services to other software applications. It acts as an intermediary between users and the computer hardware.
Process management involves handling processes in an OS, including creation, scheduling, and termination. It ensures that CPU time is shared efficiently among processes.
A process is an instance of a program that is being executed. It includes the program code, current activity, and associated resources like memory and file handles.
Process scheduling is used to allocate CPU time to different processes, ensuring fair and efficient utilization of the CPU. Common algorithms include FCFS, SJF, and Round Robin.
Memory management oversees the allocation and deallocation of memory spaces to various processes, optimizing performance and preventing memory conflicts.
Virtual memory allows the OS to use disk space as additional RAM. This enables the execution of larger applications than the actual physical memory.
Paging is a memory management scheme that eliminates the need for contiguous memory allocation by dividing memory into fixed-size pages.
The file system is responsible for storing, retrieving, and managing data files on storage devices.
A file system organizes and manages files on a storage device. It handles operations like file creation, deletion, and reading/writing.
File allocation methods define how files are stored on disk, including contiguous, linked, and indexed allocation.