COMSATS University Islamabad

Department of Computer Science

Syllabus Fall/Spring________

I. Course code and Title

CSC322 OPERATING SYSTEM CONCEPTS

II. Course Prerequisites

Course Code Title
CSC211 Data Structures and Algorithms

III. Instructor’s Information

Full Name:
Email:

Contact Number

Office Hours & Location

Teaching Assistant (if any)

IV. Course Composition

Credit
Weekly Duration (hrs) Contact Hours
Hours
Lectures 2 2 1.0 2.0
Laboratories 1 1 3.0 3.0

V. Course Description
This course covers the basic concepts of Operating Systems. It includes the following topics
Overview: Operating System Role, Purpose and Functionality; Computing Environments: Single
User, Multi User, Multiple Simultaneous Computations; Goals of Parallelism (e.g., Throughput)
versus Concurrency (e.g. Controlling access to Shared Resources); Parallelism; Communication and
Coordination; Operating Systems Structure; Design Issues; Influences of Security; Networking;
Multimedia; Windowing Systems; Operating Systems Principles: Structuring Methods (e.g.
monolithic, layered, modular, micro-kernel models), Abstractions, Processes, and Resources, Concepts
of APIs, Evolution of Hardware/Software Techniques and Application Needs, Device Organization,
Interrupts (method, implementations), Concepts of User/System State and Protection, Transition to
Kernel Mode; Concurrency: States and State Diagrams, Structures (ready list, process control block
etc.), Dispatching and Context Switching, The Role of Interrupts, Managing Atomic Access to OS
Objects, Implementing Synchronization Primitives, Multiprocessor Issues; Scheduling and Dispatch:
Preemptive and Non- Preemptive Scheduling, Schedulers and Policies, Processes and Threads,
Deadlines and Real Time Issues; Memory Management: Review of Physical Memory and Memory

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 Management Hardware, Memory Management Techniques, Working Sets and Thrashing, Caching;
Security and Protection: Overview of System Security, Policy/Mechanism Separation, Security
Methods and Devices Protection, Access Control and Authentication, Backups, File Systems; I/O
Management; Disk Management, Data Race.

VI. Text book

1. Galvin, Peter B., Greg Gagne, and Abraham Silberschatz. Operating system concepts. John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016.

VII. Reference books & Material

1. Tanenbaum, Andrew S., and Herbert Bos. Modern operating systems. Prentice Hall Press,
2014.
2. Stallings, William, and Goutam Kumar Paul. Operating systems: internals and design
principles. 8th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012.
3. Bach, Maurice J. The design of the UNIX operating system. Vol. 5. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1986.

VIII. Course Assessment

Evaluation methods Theory Weight (%)[T] Lab Weight(%)[L]
Quizzes 15 15
Assignments 10 10
Sessional Exam(I and II) 10+15 10+15
Terminal Exam 50 50
Total 100 100
Total =T+L T=(T/100)*67 L=(L/100)*33

IX. Course Outline and Contents

CDF Textbook
Lecture Topics Covered
Unit # Section
Operating Systems Overview; Operating System Role,
Silberschatz:
1. 1 Purpose and Functionality; Computer-System Organization,
For for Ch01
Device Organization, Computer-System Architecture.
Evolution of Hardware/Software Techniques and Application
Silberschatz:
2. 1 Needs, Single User, Multi User, Networking; Multimedia;
Ch01
Windowing Systems.
Silberschatz:
3. 1 Operating-System Structure, Operating-System Operations.
Ch02
Operating Systems Principles; Operating Systems Structure, Silberschatz:
4. 2
Design Issues. Ch02
OS Structuring Methods; monolithic, layered, modular, Silberschatz:
5. 2
micro-kernel models. Ch02
Process Management: Process concept, Process states,
Silberschatz:
6. 3 Interrupts (method, implementations), Structures (ready list,
Ch03
process control block etc.),

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 The Role of Interrupts, Transition to Kernel Mode, Concepts
of User/System State and Protection, Process scheduling; Silberschatz:
7. 3
Scheduling queues, schedulers, Dispatching and Context Ch03
Switching.
Silberschatz:
8. 3 Operations on processes.
Ch03
Inter-process Communication (Shared Memory and Message Silberschatz:
9. 3
Passing) Ch03
Threads, Parallelism, Multiple Simultaneous Computations;
Goals of Parallelism (e.g., Throughput) versus Concurrency Silberschatz:
10. 3
(e.g. Controlling access to Shared Resources). Ch04

11. Sessional-1
Process Synchronization, Managing Atomic Access to OS
Silberschatz:
12. 3 Objects, Implementing Synchronization Primitives, Critical
Ch05
Section Problem and Solution.
Silberschatz:
13. 3 Synchronization Hardware,
Ch05
Mutex Locks, Semaphores (Usage, Implementation, Silberschatz:
14. 3
Starvation, Priority Inversion) Ch05
Silberschatz:
15. 3 Scheduling Algorithms (RR, MLQ and MLFQ)
Ch06
Silberschatz:
16. 3 Deadlines and Real Time Issues
Ch06
Processes and Resources, Deadlock handling, Deadlock Silberschatz:
17. 4
Prevention. Ch07
Silberschatz:
18. 4 Deadlock Avoidance
Ch07
Silberschatz:
19. 4 Deadlock Detection, Deadlock Recovery
Ch07
Memory Management: Review of Physical Memory and
Memory Management Hardware, Address Binding, Address Silberschatz:
20. 5
Space Types, Dynamic Loading/Linking & Shared Libraries. Ch08

21. Sessional-2
Memory Management Techniques, Contiguous Memory Silberschatz:
22. 5
Allocation, Segmentation. Ch08
Paging (Basic Method, HW support and Protection, Shared Silberschatz:
23. 5
Pages) Ch08
VMM background, Demand paging (Basic concept, Silberschatz:
24. 5
performance) and Copy-on-write. Ch09
Silberschatz:
25. 5 Page Replacement (Basic, FIFO, Optimal and LRU)
Ch09
Allocation of frames (Minimum Number of Frames,
Silberschatz:
26. 5 Allocation Algorithms, Global Vs Local Allocation)
Ch09
Thrashing.
Storage Management: Disk Management, Disk Scheduling, Silberschatz:
27. 6
Disk structure, Swap-space management, RAID structure. Ch10
File concept, File SYSTEM Interface, File system Silberschatz:
28. 6
implementation. Ch11

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 Directory Implementation (Linked List and Hash Tables)
Silberschatz:
29. 6 Allocation methods (Contiguous, Linked and Indexed
Ch11
Allocation)
Access control, Directory and Disk Structure, I/O
Silberschatz:
30. 6 Management, I/O hardware, Application I/O interface, Kernel
Ch13
I/O systems, Streams
Security and Protection Overview of System Security, Silberschatz:
31. 7
Influences of Security, Policy/Mechanism Separation. Ch15
Security Methods and Devices Protection, Access Control and Silberschatz:
32. 7
Authentication, Backups. Ch15
Terminal Examination

Course Learning Outcomes (CLO) and Program Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
CLO Description PLO
Explain the working and functions of modern operating systems and the OS
C1 a-1
structures.
C2 Evaluate the task scheduling algorithms along with IPC issues. j-2
C3 Examine various real and virtual memory management issues and their solutions. a-1
C4 Appraisal of synchronization, deadlock issues and their handling in resource sharing a-1
C5 Explain storage and file system management. a-1
Summarize the features and limitations of the operating system used to provide
C6 a-1
protection and security.

Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs)

PLO Description
a-1 Use knowledge of computing to solve problems
j-2 Use of algorithmic principles in the modeling and design of computer-based systems

X. Assessment Schedule - Tentative

Give your tentative assessment plan with submission due date.
S.
Artifact Due Date Remarks
No.
1 Assignment 1 Semester’s 4 week
th

2 Sessional 1 Semester’s 5th week

3 Assignment 2 Semester’s 7th week
4 Assignment 3 Semester’s 10th week
5 Sessional 2 Semester’s 11th week
6 Assignment 4 Semester’s last week
7 Terminal Examination
The course teacher may add quizzes, project or more assignment as he/she may have deemed fit

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XI. Policy & Procedures
 Attendance Policy: Every student must attend 80% of the lectures delivered in this
course and 80% of the practical/laboratory work prescribed for the respective courses.
The students falling short of required percentage of attendance of
lectures/seminars/practical/laboratory work, etc., shall not be allowed to appear in the
terminal examination of this course and shall be treated as having failed this course.

 Grading Policy: The minimum pass marks for each course shall be 50%. Students
obtaining less than 50% marks in any course shall be deemed to have failed in that
course. The correspondence between letter grades, credit points, and percentage marks at
CUI shall be as follows:
Grade A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D F
Marks 90 - 100 85 - 89 80 - 84 75 - 79 70 - 74 65 - 69 60 - 64 55 - 59 50 - 54 <50
Cr. Point 4.0 3.7 3.3 3.0 2.7 2.3 2.0 1.7 1.3 0.0

 Missing Exam: No makeup exam will be given for final exam under any circumstance.
When a student misses Sessional 1 or Sessional 2 for a legitimate reason (such as medical
emergencies), his grade for this exam will be determined based on the Department policy.
Further, the student must provide an official excuse within one week of the missed exam.

 Academic Integrity: All CUI policies regarding ethics apply to this course. The
students are advised to discuss their grievances/problems with their counsellors or course
instructor in a respectful manner.

 Plagiarism Policy: Plagiarism, copying and other anti-intellectual behavior are

prohibited by the university regulations. Violators may have to face serious
consequences.

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