CSCI320 - Operating Systems II

Course Code: CSCI320 Course ID: 5309 Credit Hours: 3 Level: Undergraduate

This operating systems course presents advanced topics in the operating system, building on fundamentals introduced in earlier OS course work. Students learn to analyze how modern operating systems manages system resources across hardware and software, with particular attention to process management, process scheduling, memory management, and file management. The class compares design decisions that affect reliability, scalability, and performance while maintaining a strong focus on data integrity and system robustness. Taking a deep dive into more advanced topics, the course explores file system design, inter-process communication, virtualization, containerization, concurrency, synchronization, threads, processes, and multithreading. Students study how these core functions support efficient execution on the CPU and enable controlled access to software resources and memory. In alignment with program-level outcomes in computer science, students understand and apply system design principles that address architectural weaknesses and promote efficiency in software implementation. The course also emphasizes security, examining how common system vulnerabilities can be identified and mitigated within unix and linux-based operating systems during system design, development, and implementation.