CSCI 4320 (Principles of Operating Systems):
Lecture Topics and Assignments

The table below shows what we will be discussing in each class meeting, readings (from the textbook unless otherwise indicated), dates of exams, and due dates for homeworks. Dates of exams are fixed; other items are subject to change.

Date Topics Reading Due dates
August 26 (Th) About the course; overview and history of operating systems (Notes) 1.1 through 1.3  
August 31 (Tu) No class    
September 2 (Th) Overview of hardware functionality (Notes) 1.4  
September 7 (Tu) Operating system concepts (Notes) 1.5 through 1.11  
September 9 (Th) No class    
September 14 (Tu) Processes, threads, and concurrency (Notes) 2.1 through 2.2  
September 16 (Th) Interprocess communication (Notes) 2.3 Homework 1: HTML, PDF, PostScript
September 21 (Tu) No class    
September 23 (Th) Interprocess communication, continued (Notes)    
September 28 (Tu) Interprocess communication, continued (Notes)    
September 30 (Th) Interprocess communication, continued (Notes) 2.4  
October 5 (Tu) No class    
October 7 (Th) Scheduling (Notes) 2.5 through 2.7  
October 12 (Tu) Scheduling, continued (Notes)    
October 14 (Th) Deadlocks (Notes) 3  
October 19 (Tu) Memory management (Notes) 4.1, 4.2 Homework 2: HTML, PDF, PostScript
October 21 (Th) Exam 1 (Review in HTML, PDF, PostScript)    
October 26 (Tu) Memory management, continued (Notes) 4.3  
October 28 (Th) Memory management, continued (Notes) 4.4 through 4.6  
November 2 (Tu) Memory management, continued (Notes) 4.7 through 4.10  
November 4 (Th) Memory management, continued (Notes)    
November 9 (Tu) I/O (Notes) 5.1 through 5.3  
November 11 (Th) I/O, continued (Notes) 5.4 through 5.11  
November 16 (Tu) I/O, continued; file systems (Notes) 6.1 through 6.3 Homework 3: HTML, PDF, PostScript
November 18 (Th) File systems, continued (Notes) 6.4 through 6.6  
November 23 (Tu) No class    
November 25 (Th) Holiday    
November 30 (Tu) A little more about filesystems; exam review (Notes)   Homework 4: HTML, PDF, PostScript
December 2 (Th) Exam 2 (Review in HTML, PDF, PostScript)    
December 7 (Tu) A little about security; course wrap-up (Notes)    
       
December 14 (Tu) (No class)   Homework X (extra credit): HTML, PDF, PostScript