Operating system technical interview questions and answers help students and job seekers understand core computing concepts that are essential for technical interviews. The operating system acts as a bridge between hardware and software, making it one of the fundamental subjects tested in campus placement interviews. Recruiters frequently ask questions about process management, memory allocation, deadlocks, scheduling algorithms, threads, file systems, and OS architecture. These OS interview questions appear repeatedly in companies like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant, Capgemini, and Accenture. This guide explains the most commonly asked OS interview questions with easy-to-understand answers, practical examples, and simple definitions. Whether you are preparing for your first job, a technical round, or a written placement test, understanding OS concepts will help you perform confidently. You can also practice mock questions or download PDFs to strengthen your preparation.
Showing 10 of 137 questions
61. What is a sector?
Smallest addressable portion of a disk.
62. What is cache-coherency?
In a multiprocessor system there exist several caches each may containing a copy of same variable A. Then a change in one cache should immediately be reflected in all other caches this process of maintaining the same value of a data in all the caches s called cache-coherency.
63. What are residence monitors?
Early operating systems were called residence monitors.
64. What is dual-mode operation?
In order to protect the operating systems and the system programs from the malfunctioning programs the two mode operations were evolved:
1. System mode.
2. User mode.
Here the user programs cannot directly interact with the system resources, instead they request the operating system which checks the request and does the required task for the user programs-DOS was written for / intel 8088 and has no dual-mode. Pentium provides dual-mode operation.
65. What are the operating system components?
1. Process management
2. Main memory management
3. File management
4. I/O system management
5. Secondary storage management
6. Networking
7. Protection system
8. Command interpreter system
66. What are operating system services?
1. Program execution
2. I/O operations
3. File system manipulation
4. Communication
5. Error detection
6. Resource allocation
7. Accounting
8. Protection
67. What are system calls?
System calls provide the interface between a process and the operating system. System calls for modern Microsoft windows platforms are part of the win32 API, which is available for all the compilers written for Microsoft windows.
68. What is a layered approach and what is its advantage?
Layered approach is a step towards modularizing of the system, in which the operating system is broken up into a number of layers (or levels), each built on top of lower layer. The bottom layer is the hard ware and the top most is the user interface.The main advantage of the layered approach is modularity. The layers are
selected such that each uses the functions (operations) and services of only lower layer. This approach simplifies the debugging and system verification.
69. What is micro kernel approach and site its advantages?
Micro kernel approach is a step towards modularizing the operating system where all nonessential components from the kernel are removed and implemented as system and user level program, making the kernel smaller.The benefits of the micro kernel approach include the ease of extending the operating system. All new services are added to the user space and consequently do not require modification of the kernel. And as kernel is smaller it is easier to upgrade it. Also this approach provides more sec
70. What are a virtual machines and site their advantages?
It is the concept by which an operating system can create an illusion that a process has its own processor with its own (virtual) memory. The operating system implements virtual machine concept by using CPU scheduling and virtual memory.