Advanced Operating Systems Course, Winter 2011/2012

Prof. Kirsch, Department of Computer Sciences, University of Salzburg

Time, Location: Tue 4-5 and Th 10-12 in T03. First lecture on Tue, Oct 4, 4-5. Check schedule (iCal) for updates.

Brief Overview:

This course covers advanced topics in operating systems. It begins with a quick review of some basic operating system concepts such as processes and threads, IPC, memory management, input/output, file systems, and multiple processor systems. After around 3-4 weeks of lectures, the remainder of the course will be held interactively similar to a seminar. Each Thursday lecture will present a an advanced topic in operating systems. The students will be encouraged to discuss and analyze its content and context in class. There are weekly hands-on homework assignments that involve implementing basic operating system concepts. The assignments will be discussed in the Tuesday lectures. The final exam will be held at the end of the semester.

Goals of the course:

Learn, through interactive lectures, how to approach advanced topics in operating systems. Learn, through biweekly hands-on homework assignments, how concurrency support, memory management, device abstraction, and file handling actually works.

Assignments:

  • There will be weekly hands-on homework assignments.

Final exam:

  • There will be a final exam at the end of the semester.

Some introductory material:

  • Andrew S. Tanenbaum: Modern Operating Systems. Prentice Hall, 3rd Edition, 2008.
  • Lubomir F. Bic, Alan C. Shaw: Operating Systems Principles. Prentice Hall, 2003.
  • William Stallings: Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles. Prentice Hall, 4th Edition, 2002.
Web sources:

Grading: 50% homework and 50% final exam.

Prerequisites: programming experience, basic knowledge of operating system concepts.

Technical contact: Hannes . Payer @ cs . uni-salzburg . at
Administrative contact: Adriana . Pratter @ cs . uni-salzburg . at