COURSES

Goals

The aim of the course is: - To present the fundamental concepts and algorithms of modern operating systems in a way, which is not tied to one particular operating system. - To gain general knowledge that allows an efficient use of commercial operating systems. - To present the architecture of an operating system, which includes the concepts of processes and concurrency, memory-management schemes, interaction with the input/output devices, storage systems, protection and security embedded in the operating systems. The competencies of the students completing this course successfully will include applicable expert knowledge of operating systems.

Curriculum

Introduction: operating system structures and concepts, history of operating systems, hardware basics (processors, memory, input/output devices, buses), types of operating systems. Processes and Concurrency: concept of process and concurrency, process states, process scheduling, threads. Interaction of Processes: interprocess communication (IPC), process synchronization, semaphores, mutexes, monitors, classical IPC problems, deadlock detection, recovery, avoidance and prevention. Storage Management: memory-management schemes, secondary storage to back up main memory, swapping, virtual memory, segmentation, firm understanding of the algorithms used. Input/Output: input/output devices, direct memory access, interrupts, device drivers, graphical user interfaces, secondary and tertiary storage. File System: file system structure, allocation methods, freespace management, mass-storage systems, RAID structure, tertiary-storage structure. Distributed Systems: distributed file system, process synchronization and communication. Protection and Security: threats, types of attacks, cryptography basics, authentication and authorization mechanisms, specification and enforcement of the access rules to the system resources. Specialized Operating Systems: basic overview of real-time, embedded, smart card, handheld and mobile operating systems.