Context Switching involves storing the context or state of a process so that it can be reloaded when required and execution can be resumed from the same point as earlier. This is a feature of a multitasking operating system and allows a single CPU to be shared by multiple processes.A ... Read More

Interprocess communication is the mechanism provided by the operating system that allows processes to communicate with each other. This communication could involve a process letting another process know that some event has occurred or the transferring of data from one process to another.A diagram that illustrates interprocess communication is as ... Read More

The producer consumer problem is a synchronization problem. There is a fixed size buffer and the producer produces items and enters them into the buffer. The consumer removes the items from the buffer and consumes them.A producer should not produce items into the buffer when the consumer is consuming an ... Read More

Multithreading allows the execution of multiple parts of a program at the same time. These parts are known as threads and are lightweight processes available within the process. Therefore, multithreading leads to maximum utilization of the CPU by multitasking.The main models for multithreading are one to one model, many to ... Read More

Message passing model and shared memory model are models of interprocess communication. Details about these are given as follows −Message Passing Process Communication ModelMessage passing model allows multiple processes to read and write data to the message queue without being connected to each other. Messages are stored on the queue ... Read More

Interprocess communication is the mechanism provided by the operating system that allows processes to communicate with each other. This communication could involve a process letting another process know that some event has occurred or transferring of data from one process to another.A diagram that illustrates interprocess communication is as follows ... Read More

A command interpreter allows the user to interact with a program using commands in the form of text lines. It was frequently used until the 1970’s. However, in modern times many command interpreters are replaced by graphical user interfaces and menu-driven interfaces.Purpose of Command InterpretersCommand interpreters serve many purposes and ... Read More

A bootstrap program is the first code that is executed when the computer system is started. The entire operating system depends on the bootstrap program to work correctly as it loads the operating system.A figure that demonstrates the use of the bootstrap program is as follows −In the above image, ... Read More

The BIOS, operating system and hardware components of a computer system should all be working correctly for it to boot. If any of these elements fail, it leads to a failed boot sequence.System Boot ProcessThe following diagram demonstrates the steps involved in a system boot process −Here are the steps ... Read More

Solaris is a Unix based operating system that was developed by Sun Microsystems and after its acquisition by Oracle it is known as Oracle Solaris. It is known for its scalability and its innovative features such as DTrace, ZFS, Time Slider etc.Solaris KernelThe kernel is the core of the operating ... Read More