Chapter 1 - Introduction

What's an operating system?
What's the role of an operating system?
Storage device hierarchy
+ Caching
Dual mode operation (user and kernel)


Chapter 2 - Operating-System Structures

OS services
OS interfaces
System calls
+ Types of system calls
System programs
OS design
Mechanism vs policy
OS structure
Microkernels
Virtual Machines
System boot


Chapter 3 - Processes

Difference between program and process
Parts of a process
Process states
Process Control Block (PCB)
Process scheduling
+ Scheduling queues
Schedulers (short-, medium-, long-term)
Context switches
Process creation
fork()
exec()
Process termination
Interprocess communication (IPC)
+ Shared memory
+ Message passing
+ Buffer considerations
Client-server systems
+ Socket communication
+ Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs)
  * "exactly once", "at most once"
+ Pipes
  * Ordinary / anonymous pipes
  * Named pipes

  
Chapter 4 - Threads

Benefits of threads
Multithreading models (many-to-one, one-to-one, many-to-many)
+ Lightweight process
Thread libraries
+ Pthreads
+ Win32 threads
+ Java threads
User threads
Kernel threads
Thread cancellation
Signals
Thread pools