CS 3841 - Design of Operating Systems

3 lecture hours 2 lab hours 4 credits

• Understand the core concepts and terminology associated with operating systems
• Communicate effectively using proper grammar and technical writing in lab reports and assignments
• Develop and implement programs in C in a hosted environment
• Develop and use dynamic memory in a software application
• Develop and manage concurrency and synchronization in a software application
• Analyze scheduling problems for performance criteria
• Use files in a C based systems in multiple fashions
• Properly comment source code for effective communication

• Proficiency in programming in C, including standard C library functions (character processing, string processing, memory functions, mathmatical functions)
• Familiarity with digital logic design, memory organization, processor registers, and interrupt handling mechanisms
• Familiarity with basic data structures, such as arrays, lists, queues, and stacks
• Ability to construct basic data structures, including linked list and queues, in Java
• Familiarity with configuration management tools and disciplined software development.
• Ability to debug C source code using an IDE.

• C compilation model and building C code
• Operating systems introduction
• Operating systems structure and components
• Virtual machines
• OS processes
• Interprocess communications (shared memory, pipes, sockets, RPC)
• Example OS implementations of major constructs (task switching, synchronization, etc.)
• Threading
• Signal handling
• Scheduling and scheduling algorithms
• Synchronization and critical sections
• Deadlocks and deadlock prevention
• Virtual memory and paging
• File Systems implementation
• Physical devices and hard drive implementation
• Exam review
• In-class exams

• Introduction to UNIX system calls, debugging, and developing hosted applications (1 week)
• Construction of a fundamental data structure in C using dynamic memory (1 week)
• Construction of UNIX software using high level file system access (fopen, fread, fwrite, etc.) and integrating data structures (1 week)
• Construction of a software application using multiple processes and interprocess communications (1 week)
• Construction of a multithreaded software application with appropriate thread synchronization (2 weeks)
• Design and implementation of a memory debugging system (1 week)
• Design and implementation of a dynamic memory manager (2 weeks)