Unit 2 - Systems Software

Understand the function and purpose of an operating system

Describe memory management (paging, segmentation and virtual memory)

Describe the role of interrupts and an Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) within the fetch-decode-execute cycle

Describe the need for processor scheduling algorithms

Describe scheduling algorithms: round robin, first come first served, multi-level feedback queues, shortest job first and shortest remaining time

Describe distributed, embedded, multi-tasking, multi-user and real-time operating systems

Describe BIOS, device drivers and virtual machines

Distinguish between systems software and applications software

Describe what is meant by a utility program and give examples

Be able to justify a suitable application for a specific purpose

Distinguish between open source and closed source software

Understand the role of an assembler, compiler and interpreter

Explain the difference between compilation and interpretation, and describe situations when each would be appropriate

Explain why an intermediate language such as bytecode is produced as the final output by some compilers and how it is subsequently used

Describe the stages of compilation: lexical analysis, syntax analysis, code generation and optimisation

Describe the function of linkers and loaders

Describe the use of libraries