AL-501 RGPV B.Tech
Operating Systems (OS)
Previous year papers and the official syllabus are free to read, no account needed.
Previous Year Papers
5 papers, latest Dec 2025
- AL-501 paper, Dec 2025
- AL-501 paper, Jun 2025
- AL-501 paper, Dec 2024
- AL-501 paper, Nov 2023
- AL-501 paper, Nov 2022
Syllabus, notes and important questions for AL-501
Syllabus units
Topics as the official RGPV syllabus lists them.
Unit 1 Introduction to Operating Systems 4 topics
- Function, Evolution, Different types of Operating Systems, Desirable Characteristics and features of an OS
- Operating Systems Services – Types of Services, Different ways of providing these services (Commands, System Calls)
- Need of System Calls, Low‑level implementation of System Calls, Portability issues
- Operating System Structures
Unit 2 File Systems (Secondary Storage Management) 8 topics
- File concept and the view of users versus system programmers
- Hard‑disk organization, disk formatting and file‑system creation
- Modules of a file system
- Disk‑space allocation methods: contiguous, linked, indexed
- Disk partitioning and mounting; directory structures; file protection
- Virtual and remote file systems
- Case studies of file systems used in Unix/Linux and Windows
- System calls used for file management
Unit 3 Process Management 6 topics
- Concept of a process and the process‑state diagram
- Different types of schedulers and CPU‑scheduling algorithms; evaluation of scheduling algorithms
- Threads – user‑level and kernel‑level, thread scheduling, multiprocessor/multicore scheduling
- Case studies of process management in Unix/Linux and Windows; related system calls
- Concurrency and synchronization – real/virtual concurrency, mutual exclusion, critical‑section problem, mutex locks, monitors, semaphores, WAIT/SIGNAL operations, classic synchronization problems, inter‑process communication
- Deadlocks – characterization, prevention, avoidance, recovery
Unit 4 Memory Management 3 topics
- Memory‑management techniques – contiguous allocation; non‑contiguous allocation (paging, segmentation, paged segmentation); comparative analysis
- Virtual memory – concept, overlay, dynamic linking and loading, implementation by demand paging
- Memory management approaches in Unix/Linux and Windows
Unit 5 Input/Output Management 5 topics
- Mass‑storage structures and disk scheduling
- I/O system models – program‑controlled, interrupt‑driven, concurrent I/O; synchronous/asynchronous and blocking/non‑blocking operations; I/O buffering; application I/O interface; kernel I/O subsystem; translation of I/O requests to hardware operations
- Protection and security issues and mechanisms
- Introduction to multiprocessor, real‑time, embedded and mobile operating systems
- Overview of virtualization
Exam insights
Counted from 5 past AL-501 papers.
Marks asked per paper, by unit
-
Unit 1 Introduction to Operating Systems 17 marks
-
Unit 2 File Systems (Secondary Storage Management) 14 marks
-
Unit 3 Process Management 41 marks
-
Unit 4 Memory Management 21 marks
-
Unit 5 Input/Output Management 17 marks
Average marks of the questions from each unit in one paper. You answer only some of them, so the total is more than the paper’s maximum.
Asked again and again
-
What is an operating system? Explain its different types/classification.
Asked 2 times: 2025
-
Explain the producer-consumer problem and its solution using semaphores, showing how synchronization and mutual exclusion are achieved.
Asked 2 times: 2025
-
Define deadlock and explain the four necessary conditions / characterization for deadlock to occur.
Asked 2 times: 2025, 2024