Introduction and basic concepts

1. Definition, objectives and functions of an operating system
2. Types of operating systems: batch, multiprogramming, multitasking, time-sharing, real-time, distributed and embedded
3. OS structures: monolithic, layered, microkernel and modular
4. Kernel, shell, system calls and system programs
5. User mode vs. kernel mode
6. Booting process and interrupt handling
7. OS services and resource management

Processes, CPU scheduling and execution

1. Process concept, process states and process control block (PCB)
2. Process creation, termination and context switching
3. Threads, multithreading and multithreading models
4. Inter-process communication (IPC)
5. CPU scheduling: FCFS, SJF, SRTF, Priority and Round Robin
6. Scheduling criteria: turnaround, waiting and response time
7. Multiprocessor scheduling and real-time scheduling basics

Synchronization and shared resources

1. Race conditions and critical-section problems
2. Mutexes, semaphores, monitors and spinlocks
3. Classical synchronization problems: producer-consumer, readers-writers and dining philosophers
4. Deadlock characterization and the four necessary conditions
5. Deadlock prevention, avoidance, detection and recovery
6. Resource allocation graphs
7. Banker's algorithm and safe-state analysis

Physical and virtual memory

1. Logical vs. physical addresses and address binding
2. Contiguous memory allocation and fragmentation
3. Paging, page tables and segmentation
4. Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB)
5. Virtual memory and demand paging
6. Page replacement: FIFO, Optimal, LRU and Clock
7. Page faults, thrashing and working-set model
8. Swapping and memory allocation strategies

Data persistence and device management

1. File concepts, attributes, operations and access methods
2. Directory structures, file permissions and protection
3. File allocation: contiguous, linked and indexed
4. File-system implementation and free-space management
5. Disk scheduling: FCFS, SSTF, SCAN, C-SCAN, LOOK and C-LOOK
6. HDD vs. SSD, RAID concepts and storage management
7. I/O systems, device drivers, buffering, caching and spooling
8. File-system consistency, journaling and recovery

Security, virtualization and modern systems

1. OS protection domains, access control and privilege management
2. Authentication, authorization and OS security mechanisms
3. Malware, privilege escalation and common OS vulnerabilities
4. Virtual machines, hypervisors and virtualization
5. Containers and operating-system-level virtualization
6. Distributed operating-system concepts
7. Multiprocessor systems and synchronization challenges
8. Linux/Unix architecture, processes, permissions and system calls
9. Performance monitoring, resource allocation and troubleshooting