₹0 for students · Certificate · Intermediate

Operating Systems

5 mini courses, 17 lessons: processes, scheduling, concurrency, memory, files, containers and security

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17 lessons · ~3 hours · 30-question final exam · pass mark 70%

About the course

What you’ll learn

What the operating system does between your code and the hardware, and why it matters when your program is slow, crashes or deadlocks. Learn processes and threads, how the CPU is shared, locks and deadlocks, virtual memory, file systems, and the containers and virtual machines that run today's cloud. Simulate schedulers and page replacement in Python. Pass every lesson quiz and the final exam to earn a verifiable certificate.

Operating systemsProcesses and threadsConcurrencyMemory managementFile systemsLinux

Part of the career tracks: Computer Science Foundations, Cybersecurity and Connected Systems

How the certificate works

  1. Read each lesson’s study guide, then the full lesson and any notebooks or exercises.
  2. Pass every lesson quiz with 70% or more.
  3. Pass the final exam: 30 questions in 45 minutes.
  4. Get a certificate with a public verification link, and add it to LinkedIn.

Syllabus

17 lessons in 5 mini courses

Each mini course takes about an hour. Already know one? Test out in the app and skip it.

1. Processes and the kernel

Explain the kernel, system calls, processes and threads.

1
What an Operating System Does
10 min · The OS is a referee (sharing hardware) and an illusionist (simple abstractions).
2
System Calls
10 min · Programs ask the kernel for services through system calls.
3
Processes
12 min · A process is a running program with its own memory, files and PID.
4
Threads
10 min · A thread is a path of execution inside a process.

2. Scheduling and concurrency

Compare scheduling policies and prevent races and deadlocks.

5
CPU Scheduling
12 min · The scheduler picks which ready thread runs next.
6
Race Conditions and Locks
12 min · count += 1 is read, add, write: three steps that can interleave.
7
Deadlock
10 min · Deadlock: threads wait for each other forever.
8
Semaphores and Producer–Consumer
10 min · A semaphore is a counter with atomic wait and signal.

3. Memory

Explain virtual memory, paging and page replacement.

9
Address Spaces and Paging
12 min · Each process has its own virtual address space.
10
Virtual Memory and Page Faults
10 min · Page fault: the page isn't in RAM, so the kernel loads it.
11
Page Replacement
10 min · When memory is full, a page must be evicted.
12
The Stack, the Heap and Memory Bugs
10 min · The stack holds call frames: fast, automatic, limited in size.

4. Files and storage

Describe how file systems store files and how permissions work.

13
File Systems
12 min · A file system maps names to blocks and tracks free space.
14
Users, Permissions and the Shell
10 min · Each file has an owner, a group and permissions for u, g and o.
15
I/O, Buffering and Durability
10 min · The page cache keeps file data in RAM for fast reads and delayed writes.

5. Virtualisation and security

Compare virtual machines and containers and explain how an OS protects itself.

16
Virtual Machines and Containers
12 min · A VM runs a full OS on virtual hardware under a hypervisor.
17
Booting and OS Security
10 min · Boot: UEFI firmware → bootloader → kernel → first process (systemd).

Written by Vikosha. Lessons, questions and exercises are original. Licence: Original Vikosha course..