Tools of the Trade: Quiz 1

A legacy operating system is an operating system that is out (a)   but still being used. Some organizations continue to use legacy operating systems because software they rely on is not compatible with newer operating systems. This can be more common in industries that use a lot of equipment that requires embedded software—software that’s placed inside components of the equipment.

Booting the computer means that a special microchip called a ???? is activated. On many computers built after 2007, the chip was replaced by the UEFI. Both ???? and UEFI contain booting instructions that are responsible for loading a special program called the bootlo_____. Then, the bootlo_____ is responsible for starting the operating system.

(a)  

When you boot, or turn on, your computer, either a BIOS or ???? microchip is activated. The Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) is a microchip that contains loa (a)   instructions for the computer and is prevalent in older systems. The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is a microchip that contains loading instructions for the computer and replaces BIOS on more modern systems.

UEFI provides enhanced sec________ features.

The BIOS or UEFI microchips contain a variety of loading instructions for the computer to follow. For example, one of the loading instructions is to verify the he______ of the computer’s hardware.

The last instruction from the BIOS or UEFI activates the bootloader. The bootloader is a software program that boots the ope______ system. Once the operating system has finished booting, your computer is ready for use.

(a)  

Put these in the right order:

hw user op app

(a)  

The OS handles resource and memory management to ensure the lim_____cap_____ of the computer system is used where it's needed most. A variety of programs, tasks, and processes are constantly competing for the resources of the central processing unit, or CPU. They all have their own reasons why they need memory, storage, and input/output bandwidth. The OS is responsible for ensuring that each program is allocating and de-allocating resources. All this occurs in your computer at the same time so that your system functions efficiently.

(a)  

A virtual machine (VM) is a virtual version of a physical computer. Virtual machines are one example of virtualization. Virtualization is the process of using software to create virtual representations of various physical machines. The term “virtual” refers to machines that don’t exist physically, but operate like they do because their sof______ simulates physical hardware. Virtual systems don’t use dedicated physical hardware. Instead, they use sof______-defined versions of the physical hardware. This means that a single virtual machine has a virtual CPU, virtual storage, and other virtual hardware. Virtual systems are just co__.

(a)  

You can run multiple virtual machines using the physical hardware of a single computer. This involves dividing the reso (a)   of the host computer to be shared across all physical and virtual components. For example, Random Access Memory (RAM) is a hardware component used for short-term memory. If a computer has 16GB of RAM, it can host three virtual machines so that the physical computer and virtual machines each have 4GB of RAM. Also, each of these virtual machines would have their own operating system and function similarly to a typical computer.