Operating Systems

This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of operating system function, design, and implementation. It contains a theory component about the concepts and principles that underlie modern operating systems, and a practice component to relate theoretical principles with operating system implementation. The course is divided into three major parts. The first part of the course discusses concurrency (processes, threads, scheduling, synchronization, and deadlocks). The second part of the course discusses memory management (memory management strategies and virtual memory management). The third part of the course concerns file systems, including topics such as secondary storage systems and I/O systems. If time permits, the following topics will be briefly examined: virtualization, security, distributed synchronization, and perhaps other topics. A case study of a contemporary operating system like UNIX accompanies the course.