DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
Description: This course covers the principles of operating systems
theory and practice. Fundamental concepts such as processes, synchronization, scheduling and memory management will be presented. Another
emphasis will be on the principles of distributed operating systems.
Prerequisites: CS 310 and CS 465, or equivalent. A solid background in
Computer Architecture is required. The coursework will include substantial
programming projects; in order to be able to work on these, the students must be comfortable with C/C++
or Java programming languages.
Meeting Times and
Locations:
Required Textbook: "Operating System Concepts", by Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne (7th Edition, John Wiley
& Sons 2005, ISBN 0-471-69466-5).
"Modern Operating Systems" (3rd edition, Prentice Hall 2008, ISBN:
0-13-600663-9) by A. S. Tanenbaum, is another good
book on the principles of operating systems.
As additional reference on distributed systems, the following book can be
recommended: "Distributed Systems: Concept and Design" (4th Edition,
Addison-Wesley 2005, ISBN 0321263545), by Coulouris, Dollimore and Kindberg.
Office Hours: Tuesday
7:25 PM – 8:25
PM, Wednesday 7:25 PM – 8:25 PM, and by appointment (Office: ST II, Room
401)
Teaching Assistant (TA) : Changwei Liu (cliu6@gmu.edu)
TA Office Hours: Tuesday 2 – 4 PM; Thursday 3 – 5 PM
TA Office: ST II, Room 330
Course Web Page: http://cs.gmu.edu/~aydin/cs571
Topics:
Tentative Exam Dates:
Grading:
The students must achieve a total score of at least 85 (out
of 100) to be considered for an A. No early exams will be given and make-up
exams are strongly discouraged. A
student should present an official and verifiable excuse to miss an exam (such
as a doctor's note).
GMU Honor
Code will be enforced. The students are supposed to work individually on
the assignments/projects. Collaboration will be allowed only for the group
projects, within each group. We reserve the right to use MOSS to detect plagiarism.
Violations of GMU Honor Code or a total score of 49 (or less) will result in an
F.
Computer Accounts: All students should have accounts on the central
Mason Unix system mason.gmu.edu
(also known as
osf1.gmu.edu) and on IT&E Unix cluster zeus.ite.gmu.edu
(Instructions and related links are here). Students
can work
in IT&E computer labs for programming projects during the
specified hours.
Distance Education Session: CS 571 Spring 2009 session will be simultaneously offered to GMU Distance Education students. The distance education students will be given the midterm and final exam in campus, on the same day as Section 002.
The due dates for the assignments will be the same for Section
002 and Distance Education (Section 003) students. Each project will have a
soft copy and hard copy component that must be submitted by the date specified
on the project handouts. Students in all sections will be required to give the
demo of the last programming project in person, in the instructor’s office.
The course is delivered to the Internet section online by Network EducationWare (NEW), developed by Prof. Mark Pullen and his students at GMU.
Students in all sections will have accounts on NEW and will be able to play back the lectures and download the PDF slide files at http://disted.ite.gmu.edu.
Students enrolled to the on-line (distance education) section can find detailed information about the system, requirements
and installation/connection issues
at Distance Education Web
Page (http://disted.ite.gmu.edu).
If you are not able find an answer to a technical issue regarding the
NEW software, please send e-mail to disted@netlab.gmu.edu
Disability Statement:
If you have a learning or physical difference that may affect your academic
work, you will need to furnish appropriate documentation to