IS1350 Operating Systems 7.5 credits

The course consists of lectures and a lab course

The course is offered for students of the bachelor programmes in Computer Engineering and Information and Communication Technology. The course is currently only offered in Swedish. The course gives the student knowledge and practical skills to understand how a modern operating system is designed and implemented. It also enables the student to analyze the operation of an operating system from a system administration and security perspective.

After a completed course the student should be able to:  

• understand and explain how modern operating systems are designed and implemented with focus on: processes, threads, scheduling, virtual memory management, file systems, I/O, device drivers and system calls
• understand an explain how different parts of an operating system interacts and how they and their implementation affect applications
• explain how the operating systems UNIX, LINUX and Windows are designed and the design choices made and make relevant comparisons
• know and explain the fundamentals of real-time operating systems and support for soft real-time
• explain the basics of synchronization
• adjust the memory management to fit the demands of different applications
• program simple device drivers and kernel modules for Linux and Windows
• explain basic methods to implement I/O
• configure and install a Linux kernel
• analyze and correct applications with regard to performance problems, erroneus behavior and security issues in Linux and Windows

Required pre-requisits are:

• Basic knowledge of C and assembly programming
• Digital design
• Computer organization and architecture
• Good knowledge and ability to program in high-level languages such as JAVA
• User experience from Unix/Linux and Windows

Modern Operating Systems, Andrew S. Tanenbaum.
Third edition Prentice-Hall, Inc.

If the course is discontinued, students may request to be examined during the following two academic years.

• LAB1 - Laboratory Work, 4.5 credits, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
• TEN1 - Examination, 3.0 credits, grading scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F

Based on recommendation from KTH’s coordinator for disabilities, the examiner will decide how to adapt an examination for students with documented disability.

The examiner may apply another examination format when re-examining individual students.

The labs are performed in groups of one or two persons. The labs are examined and presented orally. All labs should be performed and examined during the academic year when the lab course was started. The lab course is graded depending on the number of higher grade assignments that are passed in addition to the mandatory assignments. The final grade, A-F, is based on the grade of the lab course and the written exam.  

Johan Montelius

• All members of a group are responsible for the group's work.
• In any assessment, every student shall honestly disclose any help received and sources used.
• In an oral assessment, every student shall be able to present and answer questions about the entire assignment and solution.

Operating systems are an integral part and necessary pre-requisite for many of the progression courses offered by the ICT school. These courses mainly fall into one of three categories: Computer Engineering, Software Engineering and Communication systems. For the groups of students that the course is offered for we would recommend the courses in Server administration and Planning, deployment and support of local and global computer networks.

The course is evaluated and developed according to the KTH policy for Course Analysis