Suppose that you are an operating system designer and have been approached by the system administrator to help solve a problem. After investigation, you realise that nonsharable files are allocated to...

Suppose that you are an operating system designer and have been approached by the system administrator to help solve a problem. After investigation, you realise that nonsharable files are allocated to jobs that eventually require other nonsharable and nonpreemptive resources and this is creating a recurring deadlock problem in your installation’s spooling system.
Question 4

• Why is the deadlock issue considered a big issue in a computer system?


• Can you explain to your system administrator why this recurring deadlock cannot be solved by the system itself when it happens?


• What features might you incorporate into the operating system so that deadlocks in the spooling system can be resolved without losing the work (the system processing) that was underway or already performed by the deadlocked processes?


• What measures can you take to prevent deadlock in the future?