COMP 421:

Operating Systems and Concurrent Programming

Spring 2009

This course provides a basic understanding of the software that manages a computer's hardware resources to provide a powerful abstract interface on which user programs execute. The course focuses on the control and utilization of processor, memory, storage, and network resources. The concepts in this course include operating system structure, process management and scheduling, interprocess communication, synchronization of concurrent processes, deadlock, main and secondary storage management, virtual memory, file systems, protection and security, and an introduction to networking.

The course is structured into two parts, a principles part and a projects part. The lectures and projects have been sequenced so that by the time you are working on a project, we have covered the concepts involved in that project in the lectures. Your implementation in the projects will help make those concepts "real" and anchor these ideas in your mind.

News

Copies of the final exam are ready to be picked up in the Computer Science department office. The completed exam is due by 5:00pm on Monday April 27. A sample final exam is available to help you in preparing for the real exam. The final exam will cover everything we have done in class and in the projects since the midterm exam.
When you pick up your final exam, you should also pick up a form entitled "Evaluation of Team Performance". This form asks about your experiences in working as a team on Lab 2. This evaluation form is part of the Department's assessment of its undergraduate curriculum and will not affect your grade in any way, but we need your cooperation in order to accurately complete this assessment. Please complete this evaluation form before beginning the final exam; the time spent completing this form will not count against the time limit for the final exam. Please return the completed form with your completed exam. Thanks.
I have enabled a discussion page on OWL-Space for the course. This discussion will be monitored by the TAs and the instructor, and answers to questions will be posted as soon as possible. You should read this discussion page regularly, as you may find the answers to other students' questions helpful to you as well. For questions not of general interest, send your questions by email to the TAs or the instructor.

Course meetings:

Tuesday and Thursday, 10:50-12:05, Duncan Hall 1070.

Reading assignments:

The textbook for the class is Operating System Concepts, Eighth edition, by Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne, 2009.
You should have already read Chapters 1-3, 6, 8-9, 12.1-12.5, 10-11, and 14-15.

Instructor:

Dave Johnson, dbj@cs.rice.edu, DH 3007, x3063. Office hours: Thursday 1:00-2:00pm.

TAs and office hours:

Joanna Crompton, jec7@cs.rice.edu, DH 3011, x3831. Office hours: Monday 10:30am-12:00pm.
Donghua Liu, dhliu@cs.rice.edu, DH 2068, x2732. Office hours: Wednesday 10:00-11:00am.
Guohui Wang, gw4314@cs.rice.edu, DH 3001, x3726.. Office hours: Tuesday 1:00-2:30pm.