> A system has 6 identical resources and $N$ processes competing for > them. Each process can request at most two requests. Which one of the > following values of $N$ could lead to a deadlock? > > 1. 1 > 2. 2 > 3. 3 > 4. 4 ---------- My attempt: Deadlock free condition is: $R \geq P(N-1)+1 ,$ Where R is total number of resources, P is the number of processes, and N is the max need of resources by each process. $6 \geq P(2-1) + 1$ $6 \geq P + 1$ $5 \geq P$ So, the number of processes should be less than $5$ for the deadlock free condition. Hence, all options can not be deadlocked. ---------- In this exercise problem the answer given option (4). > Can you explain it in a formal way, please?