The aim of this module is to give learners an appreciation and understanding of the internal workings and designs of modern operating systems while also providing learners with the necessary basic knowledge, skills and understanding to install, configure and troubleshoot both Windows and Linux operating systems.
Fundamental Concepts of Operating Systems
Definition and function of an operating system. - Resources and Logical Components in an operating system. - The four main OS managers and their inter-relationships. - Overview of different types of operating systems, past and present.
Process and Threads
Process vs. program. - Creation and termination of processes. - Process state models and control. - The thread concepts and implementation models.
Booting and Shutting Down
Bootstrapping, boot loaders and start-up scripts. - Run levels. - Rebooting and shutting down.
Scheduling
Uni-processor scheduling. - High, medium and low level schedulers. - Low level scheduling algorithms. - Thread, multiprocessor and real-time scheduling.
Memory Management
Logical vs. physical address space. - Paging and segmentation. - Segmentation with paging. - Virtual Memory Management (demand paging, page-replacement etc.).
Virtual Memory Management
Demand paging. - Process creation. - Page-replacement. - Hardware facilities.
Controlling and Monitoring Processes
Components of a process. - Monitoring processes and process control utilities. - Signals. - Runaway processes.
Device Management
I/O Device characteristics and objectives of I/O systems. - Physical and logical organisation of I/O functions. - Categorisation of types of devices. - Buffering.
File Management
Basic concepts and file management techniques. - Disk partitions and file management utilities. - Journalling.
User and Group Account Management
Adding and removing users. - Disabling logins and account management utilities.
| Module Content & Assessment | |
|---|---|
| Assessment Breakdown | % |
| Other Assessment(s) | 50 |
| Formal Examination | 50 |