Abhay Singh Kathayat

Posted on Jan 22

Master Operating Systems: 100 Advanced Interview Questions for Senior Developers

#linux #advancedos #linuxsecurity

What is an operating system, and what are its primary functions?
Explain the difference between kernel mode and user mode.
What is context switching, and how does it affect performance?
Explain the concept of system calls and give examples.
What are the differences between monolithic kernels and microkernels?
What is the role of an operating system scheduler?
Explain the difference between preemptive and non-preemptive multitasking.
What is system booting, and how does it work in modern operating systems?
Describe the lifecycle of a process in an operating system.
What is a thread, and how does it differ from a process?

How does the operating system manage process scheduling?
Explain the concept of process states (e.g., running, waiting, etc.).
What is deadlock, and how can it be prevented or handled?
What is a process control block (PCB)?
How do semaphores and mutexes help in process synchronization?
What are the different types of scheduling algorithms?
How does the operating system implement context switching?
What is the difference between user-level threads and kernel-level threads?
Explain the concept of race conditions and how they can be avoided.
What is process synchronization, and why is it important in a multi-threaded environment?

How does the operating system manage physical memory?
What is virtual memory, and how does paging work in modern operating systems?
Explain segmentation in memory management.
What is a page table, and how does it map virtual memory to physical memory?
What are page faults, and how does the OS handle them?
Explain the working set model in memory management.
What is memory fragmentation, and how does it affect system performance?
How does the OS handle memory allocation and deallocation?
What is swap space, and how does it relate to virtual memory?
How does the buddy system work for memory allocation?

How does the operating system manage I/O devices?
What is buffering, and how does it improve I/O performance?
How does the OS handle interrupts generated by I/O devices?
What is the difference between polling and interrupt-driven I/O?
Explain direct memory access (DMA) and how it improves data transfer efficiency.
How does the OS handle asynchronous I/O?
What are I/O schedulers, and how do they optimize device access?
What are the differences between synchronous and asynchronous I/O operations?
How does the OS handle file caching and buffer management?
How do modern operating systems support virtual devices?

What is the producer-consumer problem, and how do you solve it using synchronization?
What is a critical section, and how do you protect it?
Explain the concept of a mutex and its role in process synchronization.
What is the monitor concept, and how does it differ from semaphores?
How do operating systems avoid deadlocks in a concurrent system?
What is the priority inversion problem, and how can it be mitigated?
Explain the concept of race conditions, and how can they be avoided?
How does an operating system implement message passing in concurrent systems?
What is lock-free programming, and why is it useful in multi-threaded environments?
What is deadlock detection in a distributed system?

How does the operating system implement user authentication and authorization?
What is access control in operating systems, and how is it implemented?
What are ACLs (Access Control Lists), and how are they different from traditional file permissions?
Explain the concept of security policies and how they are enforced in the OS.
How do operating systems handle user account management?
What are the key components of kernel security?
How does the OS handle buffer overflow attacks?
What is the sandboxing technique, and how is it implemented?
How does the OS ensure data confidentiality and integrity?
What is SELinux, and how does it enhance system security?

What is virtualization, and how does the OS support it?
What is the difference between full virtualization and paravirtualization?
How do hypervisors work, and what is the role of the OS in virtualization?
What is the purpose of containerization, and how does it differ from virtualization?
How do Docker containers interact with the OS?
What is the role of cgroups in Linux for managing container resources?
How does the OS implement virtual memory for containers?
What is Linux namespace, and how is it used in containers?
What are container orchestrators, and how does the OS integrate with them?
How do VMs and containers affect system performance?

What is kernel mode programming, and what privileges does it provide?
How does the OS implement interrupt handling?
What is system call interception, and how does it work?
What are the differences between monolithic kernels and microkernels in terms of security?
How does the OS handle file system journaling?
Explain the concept of load balancing in operating systems.
What are kernel modules, and how are they loaded/unloaded in Linux?
How does the OS handle system crashes, and what recovery mechanisms are available?
What are system-level programming languages, and how do they interact with the OS?
How do real-time operating systems (RTOS) differ from general-purpose operating systems?

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