DATA2500 Operating Systems Course description

In this course, the students shall gain an overview of how operating systems work and learn to understand the principles on which they are based. In particular, they shall gain insight into the structure of operating systems through scripting, focusing mostly on Linux. 

Students are required to have good programming skills, for example by having completed the course Programming.

No requirements over and above the admission requirements.

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student is capable of:

• explaining the basic principles of how an operating system organises all resource use and makes the use of computers simpler and more efficient for ordinary users and applications
• identifying the most important operating systems and explaining the differences between them
• explaining the components of a computer and how the operating system controls it
• explaining multitasking, CPU scheduling, processes, threads and synchronisation
• explaining how the operating system organises the use of cache and internal memory
• explaining hard drives and file systems
• analysing and explaining concrete sequences of events for running software on and using an operating system
• explaining virtualisation technologies

Skills

The student is capable of:

• communicating with and controlling the operating system from the command line in Linux and Windows
• creating new users and groups, defining rights for files and folders in Linux and Windows
• using pipes and redirection to put together simple commands to solve complex tasks in Linux and Windows
• solving concrete tasks relating to operating system with the help of scripting for Linux and Windows
• using scripting language for file processing, arrays and hash, and for regular expressions

General competence

The student is capable of:

• exchanging and discussing issues relating to operating systems
• giving recommendations on the use and procurement of operating systems
• quickly becoming familiar with new technology relating to operating systems
• considering and recommending which scripting or programming language is best suited to solve a concrete technical problem
• helping ordinary users to solve tasks relating to operating systems

Lectures and individual exercises. The exercises are based on the students’ own work, supervised by the lecturer and/or a student assistant. The students work in groups. The groups comprise maximum three students.

The following coursework is compulsory and must be approved before the student can sit the exam:

• 3 group assignments
• 3 multiple choice tests

Individual written exam, 3 hours

The exam result can be appealed.

None.

Grade scale A-F.

One internal examiner. External examiners are used regularly.