433-332 Operating Systems

433-252 Software Engineering Principles and Tools, 433-253 Algorithms and Data Structures and 433-254 Software Design

The objective of this subject is for students to understand the function of operating system components and their interactions; to be able to exploit operating system facilities to improve the functionality and efficiency of programs; and to be able to evaluate the suitability of a given operating system for a given task.

Topics covered include operating system structure: interrupts, system calls; memory management: paging, segmentation; concurrent processes: mutual exclusion, synchronisation, deadlocks, scheduling; input/output, DMA; file systems, security; and introduction to distributed systems.

Project work (expected to take about 36 hours) during semester and one written examination (not exceeding 3 hours) at the end of the semester. The project work must be completed satisfactorily to pass the subject. Weighting of assessment components will be advised at the commencement of the subject.