Interview Q&A / Operating Systems
Operating Systems interview questions
Processes, threads, scheduling, memory and deadlocks, in plain words.
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- What is a condition variable and why does wait() release the lock?
A condition variable lets a thread sleep until some condition becomes true. wait() atomically releases the lock and sleeps so other threads can change the state; on wakeup the thread reacquires the lock and rechecks.
IntermediateQuick answer1 min read - What is a monitor in operating systems, and how is it different from a semaphore?
A monitor bundles shared data with the procedures that access it, and the language guarantees only one thread is inside at a time. A semaphore is a bare counter that the programmer must use correctly everywhere.
IntermediateQuick answer1 min read