Syllabus

CS 470: Operating Systems

Summer 2009

Grading Note: The programming projects are an important part of the course. Students MUST PASS the project portion of the class to PASS the class.

Learning Outcomes:

• Students will demonstrate mastery of process description and control concepts, specifically:
  • process descriptors,
  • logical resource descriptors
  • typical element of descriptors forms
  • process control primitives
  • state description of process (ready, running, blocked)
  • Threads, SMP, and Microkernels
  • multithreaded OS
  • concurrency and performance benefits of multithreaded OS
  • Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and performance benefits
  • multiple-processor machine
  • microkernel to minimize OS kernel code
• Students will build programs to demonstrate OS concurrency: mutual exclusion and synchronization. Specifically students programs will demonstrate concepts such as:
  • multiprogramming
  • distributed processing
  • concurrency
  • conflict resolution and cooperation between processes
  • conflict resolution mechanism
  • critical sections of process execution
  • semaphores
  • messages
• Students will be able to define and detect examples of concurrency problems:
  • deadlock
  • starvation
• Students will demonstrate a working knowledge of memory management principles through problem sets and programming projects. Specifically, students will consider:
  • overlay problem
  • protection
  • sharing
  • program loading
  • relocation
  • paging
  • segmentation
  • addressing mechanism
  • use of paging and segmentation
  • virtual memory
  • total memory management scheme
  • interplay of hardware and software, secondary and main memory,
  • cache, segmentation and paging.
• Students will be able to define and through problem sets deomnstrate an understanding of scheduling techniques and processes. Specifically students will consider:
  • long term scheduling
  • medium term scheduling
  • short term scheduling
  • algorithms
  • scheduling and multiprocessor configuration
  • real-time scheduling
  • I/O management and disk scheduling
  • I/O requirements for OS
  • buffering strategies
  • disk scheduling
  • use of disk cache
• Students will demonstrate a working knowledge of file management principles through problem sets and programming projects. Specifically, students will consider:
  • physical and logical organization of data,
  • services of OS for users file management mechanisms and
  • data structures

Honor Code: All work turned in for credit, including exams and all components of the project, are to be the work of the student whose name is on the exam or project. For all project components, the student can receive assistance from individuals other than the instructor only to ascertain the cause of errors. Thus you can get help if you need it to figure out why something doesn't work. You just can't get help from anyone, other than the instructor or TA, to figure out how to make something work. All solutions turned in for credit are to be your individual work and should demonstrate your problem solving skills, not someone else's.

The following text should appear on all assignments:
I pledge that I have neither given nor received help from anyone other than the instructor for all program components included here.

The student should sign his or her name under the pledge. Any deviation from this policy is an honor code violation and will be treated as such if detected. It should be included as a comment in your source code and part of your written report.

Class Attendance:
Class attendance is expected.

ADA Statement:
Students who have documented disabilities that may affect their ability to access information and/or material presented in this course are encouraged to contact the Disability Support Services (DSS) office so that appropriate academic adjustments and accommodations can be provided.

Students who have contacted the DSS office should give me a copy of their Confirmed Eligibility for Academic Adjustments form as soon as possible so that we can discuss how the approved adjustments will be implemented for this class.

Students who have not documented their disabilities and wish to arrange for academic adjustments and accommodations, as well as students who require additional information should contact Disability Support Services in Bouillon Hall, Room 205 or by email at dssrecept@cwu.edu or by telephone at 963-2171.

Caveat:
The schedule and procedures for this course are subject to change. It is the student's responsibility to learn of and adjust to changes.

Last updated: Jun 19, 2009

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