In Operating Systems, Preemptive Scheduling is a type of CPU scheduling method in which the CPU is allocated for a limited time to a given process. In contrast, Non-Preemptive Scheduling is the scheduling technique in which the CPU is allocated to a process and hold by it till the process gets terminated. Read this article to learn more about Preemptive and Non-Preemptive Scheduling in Operating System and how they are different from each other. What is Preemptive Scheduling? Preemptive Scheduling is a type of CPU scheduling in which the resources (CPU Cycle) have been allocated to a process for a ... Read More

In operating systems, semaphore and mutex are two kernel resources that are used to provide synchronization services. A semaphore is an integer variable, while a mutex is an object. Read this article to learn more about semaphore and mutex and how they are different from each other. What is Semaphore? Semaphore is a signalling mechanism. It is basically an integer variable. A semaphore uses two operations, namely wait and signal for process synchronization. Therefore, the wait and signal operations can modify a semaphore. There are two types of semaphores namely, Counting Semaphore and Binary Semaphore. Counting Semaphore is the type ... Read More

An operating system acts as a bridge between the hardware and applications. The CPU is that part of the system which handles all the tasks of the system. Sometime such situations arise, when it is required to interrupt the currently running task and take a rapid action. Therefore, in operating system, there are two methods namely interrupt and polling for dealing with such events. In both interrupt and polling, the CPU is paused what it is doing and made to execute an essential task. Both interrupt and polling are quite different from each other in several ways. In this article, ... Read More

Buffering and caching, two important concepts in operating systems, are used to increase the data transmission and processing speed. The most basic difference between buffering and caching is that buffering is used to sync the speed of data transmission between sender and receive, while caching is used to increase the speed of data processing by the CPU. In this article, we will discuss the important differences between buffering and caching. But before that, let's have a basic overview of buffering and caching so that it becomes easier to understand the differences between them. What is Buffering? The area in main ... Read More

Both multitasking and multithreading are the concepts related to the operating system of the computer. One major difference between multitasking and multithreading is that multitasking allows the CPU of computer to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, while multithreading allows the CPU to execute multiple threads of the same process simultaneously. Read through this article to find out more about Multitasking and Multithreading and how they are different from each other. Let's start with some basics first. What is Multitasking? When a single CPU is allowed to execute multiple tasks at the same time, it is called the multitasking. In ... Read More

Both Semaphore and Monitor are types of process synchronization tools in operating systems. Semaphores and monitors allow the different processes to utilize the shared resources in mutual exclusion, however they are different from each other. The basic difference between a semaphore and a monitor is that a semaphore is an integer variable, whereas a monitor is an abstract data type. Read this article to find out more about semaphores and monitors and how they are different from each other. What is Semaphore? A semaphore is a process synchronizing tool. It is basically an integer variable, denoted by "S". The ... Read More

In operating systems, both deadlock and starvation are unwanted situations that take place when the processes that need a shared resource block each other's progress indefinitely. Both are unwanted situations; however, a deadlock is quite different than a starvation. In this article, we will discuss all the important differences between deadlock and starvation. What is Deadlock? A deadlock is a condition in operating systems in which no process proceeds for execution and waits for resources that have been acquired by some other processes. Thus, in the case of a deadlock condition, the process simply gets blocked. Deadlock is also known ... Read More

Both paging and swapping are important concepts in operating systems that place a process in the main memory for its execution, but they are quite different from each other in many aspects. Read this article to learn more about paging and swapping and their specific characteristics. What is Paging? In OS, Paging is a memory management strategy in which the process address space is divided into blocks of the same size, called pages (where the size of each page is power of 2, and is between 512 bytes and 8192 bytes). The size of the process is then measured in ... Read More

A computing system which consists of more than two processors is known as a multiprocessor system. Multiprocessor systems are broadly classified into two categories− loosely coupled multiprocessor system and tightly coupled multiprocessor system. In a loosely coupled multiprocessor system, the degree of coupling between different processor is low; whereas a tightly coupled multiprocessor system has high degree of coupling between different processors of the system. Read this article to find more about loosely coupled and tightly coupled multiprocessor systems and how they are different from each other. What is a Loosely Coupled Multiprocessor System? A multiprocessor which has very ... Read More

Memory is a part of any computer system that is used to store data and instructions. Computer memory is broadly classified into three categories − Primary Memory, Secondary Memory, and Cache Memory. Primary memory is usually in the form of random access memory (RAM) and is used to store data that the CPU needs to access quickly. Secondary memory is usually in the form of hard drives, solid-state drives, or removable storage devices (such as USB drives) and is used to store data that the CPU does not need to access immediately. Read this tutorial to find out more about ... Read More