Andrew S. Tanenbaum (OS) Edition 4 Exercise 6 Question 22 (Page No. 467)

Question

A system has two processes and three identical resources. Each process needs a maximum of two resources. Is deadlock possible? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

No, deadlock is not possible.

Because in the worst case each process gets one resource and we still have one more resource left, which can be assigned to one of the processes. After some time that process will release the resources and can be assigned to another process.