Operative Systems

Recommended Prerequisites

Programming, Computer technology, Computer Architecture

Teaching Methods

The Theoretical classes will have detailed exposition of the main concepts, principles and theories of Operative Systems, complemented with practical examples that are illustrative of real world systems. The Theoretical-Practical classes will have detailed exposition of the Linux application development environment. Classes will include demonstrations and problem resolution activities. In Practical-Laboratorial classes, students will develop several group projects that require the application of theoretical knowledge and promote critical thinking.

Learning Outcomes

This unit is a basic Operative Systems (OS) course. An OS should support an environment for the development and execution of programs, an interface for accessing the internal computational system (Programming API) and managing the hardware and software computational resources: Processors, Memory, Peripherals, Information (data and programs) stored in the Filesystem. The goal of this course is to present the students with the understanding of how modern OS work and to enable students to develop system applications that directly use the OS API and that explore the concurrency and multi-program features of the system. This course promotes the acquisition of competences through analysis and synthesis, problem solving, practical application of theoretical knowledge, autonomous learning, oral and written communication, critical thinking and decision making.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Functions of an Operative System
2. Filesystem
3. Input/Output and disk scheduling
4. Process Management
5. Program Scheduling
6. Memory Management
a. Virtual Memory
b. Memory-Mapped Files
7. Multi-threading
8. Concurrent Programming
a. Programming in C for Linux; Linux commands; Linux System Functions
b. Multi-process and Multi-threaded Programming
c. Inter-process communication
i. Signals; Pipes; Named Pipes; Select; Shared Memory; Message Queues
d. Synchronization
i. Mutual Exclusion (mutexes), Semaphores, Condition Variables
ii. Deadlocks e Race Conditions
9. Security
10. Virtualization

Head Lecturer(s)

Bruno Miguel Brás Cabral

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Final grade is the results of: an exam worth 65% of the final grade, and the course projects worth the remaining 35%. Students have to achieve a minimum mark of 47.5% in the exam and 47.5% in the projects to succeed in the course: 100.0%

Bibliography

Operating System Concepts: 7th Edition, by Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, Greg Gagne. John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0471694665

Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles 5th Edition, by William Stallings. Prentice Hall, ISBN 0131479547

Unix Systems Programming: Communication, Concurrency and Threads 2nd Edition, by Kay Robbins, Steve Robbins. Prentice Hall, ISBN 0130424110

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment Second Edition, by W. Richard Stevens, Stephen A. Rago. Addison-Wesley