Operating Systems and Computer Structures G2



Jan Newmarch
room: 11C20
Tel: 201 2422
email: jan@newmarch.name
WWW: http://jan.newmarch.name

Aims

An Operating System is the most widely used piece of software in any computer. This unit aims to teach the concepts underlying Operating Systems, and to show how different choices in Operating System design and implementation have effects on applications, application programmers and user environments.

Objectives

At the end of this unit students will understand the various levels of system and application software. They will be familiar with the major Operating System services such as file systems, memory management, process management, device control and network services. They will understand how design decisions in Operating Systems affect users of the system.

In addition, students will have used a major Operating System extensively, with experience in using an interactive command line programming language. They will also will have experience in using a systems programming language with an Application Programmers Interface to the Operating System for its services. This semester the Operating System will be Unix, and the systems programming language will be C.

Entry Competencies

For undergraduates: Data Structures and Algorithms, and Computer Organisation 2. For graduates: Programming Techniques G1, Systems Analysis G1 and Computer Structures G1.

If you do not have CO2, you should not do this unit. CO2 and about half of Operating Systems will combine to form a new unit Systems Software next year. The other half will combine with Data Comms to form a new third year unit. Similarly, CSG1 and CSG2 will combine into a new 4CP unit next year. Computer Engineers shold be studying this material as the second half of Comp Eng 2 this year.

Students have the ability to program in both high and low level languages. They understand how to design algorithms using abstract data types, and implement the algorithms. In addition, they have an understanding of basic machine architecture and organisation.

Assessment

There will be three assignments in this unit, plus a final exam. To achieve a pass, it is necessary and sufficient to

complete all assignments to a satisfactory level.
pass the final exam.
pass overall (assignments plus exam).

(If an assignment is graded as unsatisfactory, it may be resubmitted at most once.)

The assignments are due

week 5. Shell programming.
week 9. Simple C program using file system.
week 14. Concurrent processes.

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Bibliography

The recommended text is: Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Modern Operating Systems, Prentice-Hall.

Unit Content

The lecture schedule is expected to be

week 1. Overview of Operating System functions; Common Unix and MSDOS commands
week 2. Basic shell programming
week 3. Advanced shell programming and regular expressions
week 4. Introduction to C; comparison to Ada and Pascal
week 5. C programming
week 6. File systems.
week 7. Memory management.
week 8. Paging and virtual memory.
week 9. Inter process communication.
week 10. Break.
week 11. Break.
week 12. Process management.
week 13. Distributed processing.
week 14. Distributed file systems.
week 15. Device drivers.

Other matters

There will be a one hour tutorial each week, immediately followed by a one hour laboratory. The purpose of the tutorial is to discuss more theoretical issues. The purpose of the laboratory is to gain and practice skills in using the resources provided by the Operating System. Both the tutorial and laboratory are regarded as neccessary.
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