CMSC 23000
Operating Systems
Preliminary syllabus (Autumn 2006)

The following is a high-level list of the topics that will be covered in Operating Systems this year. Chapters refer to the main text (Operating systems concepts; 7th Ed). Note that not all all topics are covered by text; you are responsible for material presented in class.

1. Concurrent programming (Chapters 2 and 3)
   Programming models, synchronization/communication mechanisms, and correctness issues.

2. Implementation of the process abstraction (Chapter 3)
   Interrupt handlers, context switching, process state, implementation of threads, and implementation of synchronization primitives.

3. Memory management (Chapter 4)
   Schemes for explicit memory management, virtual memory, garbage collection.

4. Input/output (Chapter 5)

5. File systems (Chapter 6)

6. Operating system architecture (Chapter 12)
   monolithic vs. micro kernels; single-threaded vs. multi-threaded; ...