Operating System (OS)

Course Title: Operating System (OS)

Course No: ENCT 331

Nature of the Course: Theory + Lab

Semester: 5

Full Marks: 60 + 40 + 25

Pass Marks: 24 + 16 + 8

Credit Hours: 3

Course Description

This course focuses on the fundamental principles, design, and functionality of operating systems, spanning process management and synchronization. It systematically examines process communication and I/O and memory management, moves through file systems into security and system administration tools, and progresses into hypervisors and virtual systems, concluding in recent developments in embedded and communication-oriented operating systems.

Course Objectives

The objective of this course is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the principles, design, and functionality of operating systems. It focuses on core concepts such as process management, inter-process communication and synchronization, input/output management and file system organization. The course also introduces essential aspects of system security, administration, and virtualization, equipping students with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills in modern operating system design.

Course Contents

1. Introduction

6 hrs8 marks

1.1. History of operating systems (OS)

1.2. OS as an extended machine and resource manager

1.3. Type of operating system: Mainframe, server, personal, smartphone and handheld, IoT and embedded, real-time, smart-card

1.4. Operating system components: Kernel, shell, utilities, applications

1.5. Types of OS kernel: Monolithic, micro, nano, layered, hybrid, Exo Kernel

1.6. System calls, shell commands, shell programming

1.7. POSIX standard

1.8. Bootloader, MBR/GPT, UEFI and legacy boot

2. Process Management

7 hrs10 marks

2.1. Introduction to process

Process description

Process states

Process control

2.2. Scheduling algorithms

First come first serve (FCFS)

Shortest job first (SJF)

Shortest remaining time (SRT)

Round robin (RR)

Highest response ratio next (HRNN)

Completely fair scheduler (CFS) used in Linux

2.3. Threads and thread scheduling

3. Process Communication and Synchronization

10 hrs13 marks

3.1. Principles of concurrency, race condition, critical region

3.2. Mutual exclusion, semaphores, and Mutex

3.3. Message passing and monitors

3.4. Classical problems of synchronization: Readers-writers problem, producer-consumer problem, dining philosopher problem

3.5. Deadlock: Prevention, ignorance, avoidance, detection, and recovery

4. I/O and Memory Management

9 hrs12 marks

4.1. I/O management

Principles of I/O hardware and software

I/O software layer

Disk technologies: magnetic disk, SSD, NVMe storage

RAID

Concept of stable storage, cost per bit comparison

4.2. Memory management

Memory address, swapping, and managing free memory space

Virtual memory management; Paging; Segmentation

Page replacement algorithms (FIFO, LRU, LFU, optimal), page fault, and hit ratio

Allocation of frames

Thrashing

5. File Systems

3 hrs4 marks

5.1. File concepts: Name, structure, types, access, attributes, operations

5.2. Directory structures: Paths and hierarchies (Linux/Windows)

5.3. File system implementation: Inodes, allocation methods (Contiguous, linked, indexed)

5.4. File system performance: Factors affecting efficiency

5.5. Example file systems: NTFS, EXT4, FAT32, NFS

6. Security and System Administration Tools

3 hrs4 marks

6.1. OS security: Cryptography, multi-factor authentication (MFA), secure boot, and sandboxing

6.2. Access control: Policies, lists, and OS support

6.3. System administration: User management, environment setup, and tools (AWK, shell scripts, Make)

7. Hypervisors and Virtual Systems

4 hrs5 marks

7.1. Hypervisors: Type 1 and type 2

7.2. Virtual machines: Creating a virtual machine in Qemu/VirtualBox/VMWare

7.3. Container virtualization: Docker and Kubernetes

7.4. Powershell and windows subsystem for Linux(WSL)

7.5. Performance optimization and security in virtualized environments

8. Recent Development

3 hrs4 marks

8.1. Role of operating systems in embedded and communication systems

8.2. Synchronization in real-time communication and IoT systems

8.3. Memory and I/O management in embedded communication devices

8.4. File systems used in mobile, IoT, and communication devices (YAFFS, F2FS)

8.5. Securing communication-oriented OS and networked embedded devices

8.6. Application of virtualization in IoT gateways and communication systems

Laboratory Works

(15 hours)

1.Basic Unix commands and shell programming
2.Implementation of the ls and grep commands
3.Programs using the I/O system calls of the Unix operating system
4.Implementation of scheduling algorithms (FCFS, round robin) and the producer-consumer problem using semaphores
5.Implementation of some memory management schemes, such as paging and segmentation
6.Project work

Reference Books

1.Tanenbaum, A. S., Bos, H. (2009). Modern operating systems. PHI Learning.
2.Stallings, W. (2012). Operating systems: Internals and design principles. Pearson Education.
3.Chaturvedi, A., Rai, B. L. (2011). Unix and shell programming. University Science Press.

Notes:

This syllabus follows the official BEI curriculum of Tribhuvan University. In case of any doubt or revision, the university’s published syllabus shall be considered authoritative. https://ioe.tu.edu.np/pages/electronics-engineering-curriculum-structure-2660

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