Office: Communications Facility 473
Office Hours
Phone: (360)
650-3795
Email: Michael.Meehan@wwu.eduInstructor: Dr. J.
Michael Meehan
Office:
Communications
Facility 473
Office Hours
Phone: (360)
650-3795
Email: Michael.Meehan@wwu.edu
Catalog Description
Class meeting times
Grading Policies
Other texts you may find helpful.
Texts
Text Reading Checklist
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| 12:00-12:50 | 12:00-12:50 | 12:00-12:50 |
Texts
Managing and Maintaining Your PC fifth edition 2006, Andrews,
Thompson Course Technology, ISBN 1-4188-3557-9.
Lab manual to accompany text above.
The Complete Guide to Linux System Administration ISBN 0-619-21617-4
Course is being taught as an experimental offering in preparation for creating a standard course with similar content. As such, it is labeled with the experimental course number 197.
CS197 Software Installation, Operation and Configuration
of Personal Computer Systems. (4)
Prerequisite: none. Overview of computer hardware components. Installing and
configuring Windows XP. Installing and configuring the Linux operating system.
Open source software installation. Each student will receive a licensed copy of
MS Windows XP and all Microsoft Development Tools (language compilers etc.)
which may be used on their own personal computer.
Lab: There will be 10 closed lab sessions of two hours each, one per week, during the course. You are required to complete 10 lab assignments from you lab book in order to complete the course. Additional lab assignments from your lab manual may be submitted for additional credit.
This course is primarily iintended for those not majoring in computer science although some computer science majors may find the material worthwhile.
Topic Level Curriculum
Personal Computer History
Various PC Types
TTL Logic Circuits and voltage levels
Computer Components
CPU
ALU
CU
Registers
Von Neuman Architecture
Machine Level Instructions
Pipelining
Hyperthreading
Microprocessors
Intel IA-32
386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III,
Pentium IV
AMD
Cyrus
Power PC
SPARC
Memory
Types and speeds of RAM
Primary and Secondary Storage
Caching
L1 and L2 caches
Static RAM
Page Mode RAM
EDO DRAM
Synchronous DRAM
Enhanced DRAM
Cached DRAM
Rambus DRAM
Video Memory
WRAM
Parity
Fake Parity
ECC memory
Memory Packaging
30-pin SIMMs
72-pin SIMMs
Dual In-Line Modules
Small Outline DIMMs
SIPPs
Identifying the Modules on your computer
The Motherboard
Early Motherboards
AT
Mini-AT
LPX
Mini-LPX
ATX
Mini-ATX
The BIOS
The idea of firmware
Booting Up
Power-On self Test
BIOS Extensions
BIOS Data Area
Date
Disk Parameter Tables
BIOS Identification
System Configuration CMOS
Advanced Setup
Plug and Play
Shadowing
Upgrading a BIOS
Flash BIOS
Various BIOS makers
Chipsets and support circuits
System Controller
Peripheral Controller
Memory Controller
Power Management
Bus Interface
Hard Disk Controllers
Floppy Disk Controllers
Input/Output Ports
The expansion bus
What is a bus?
PC Bus
ISA
Enhanced ISA
VESA Local Bus
PCI
PCMCIA
Mass Storage Technology
Tracks, surfaces and Sectors
Writing and Reading a disk
On-board caches
Storage Interfaces
ATA
SCSI
Floppy Disk
Cabling
Hard Disks
Physical Formats
Geometry of a disk
Disk Addressing
Floppy Disks
History and Media Types
Compact Disks
CD-DA
CD-ROM
CD-Recordable
CD-Erasable
Photo-CD
Video-CD
DVD
Tape
Cartridges
Start-Stop
Streaming Tape
Parallel
Serpentine Recording
Helical Scan Recording
Input Devices
Keyboards
QWERTY
Dvorak-Dealey
PC 83-key
AT 84-key
Advanced 101-key
Windows 104-key
Typematic
RepeatKeys
BounceKeys, FilterKeys, and SlowKeys
StickyKeys
Toggle Keys
Connectors
PC keyboard connector 5 pin
PC XT 6 pin
PS/2 6 pin mini DIN
Mice
Buttons, Interfaces, Protocols, Resolution
Trackballs
Joysticks and Paddles
Scanners
The Display System
Character Mode and Graphics Mode
Scanning, retrace and synchronizing signals
Vertical interleave
Display Adapters
Video Board Types
Accelerator Chips
RAMDACs
Memory
BIOS
Video Interfaces
ISA, Local Bus, UMA, VGA, VESA FC, VESA AFC, VESAA MC, AGP
Displays
CRT
LCD
Field Emission Displays
Electro-Luminescent Displays
Gas-Plasma
LED
Connectors
Video
Audio
Enhanced Video Connector
Audio
Analog Audio
Digital Audio
Sound Boards
MIDI
Parallel Ports
IEEE 1284
Cables and connectors
Printers and Plotters
History of Printers
Print Engines
Standards PostScript, HPGL etc.
Serial Ports
RS232C
ACCESS.bus
IrDA
USB
IEE-1394 (Firewire)
Networking
Standards
Cabling
IEEE 802.3
IEEE 802.11
Power
Desktop power supplies
Energy*Star
Laptop batteries
UPS
Cases
XT size, AT size, Mini-AT size, ATX, Small Footprint, Tower styles, notebooks
Software
Applications
Utilities
Operating Systems
Programming Languages
What is Unix/Linux?
Linux distributions
Redhat
Debian
GenToo
Mandrake
Suse
etc.
The man command
booting Linux
grub versus lilo
User Ids and root
Ownership of files and processes
su and sudo
The Unix filesystem
permissions
regular files
directories
Character and block devices
Hard links
Symbolic links
inodes
Shutting down the computer
drastic methods
gentler methods
The concept of a user shell
Various types of shells
Built-in shell
Startup Scripts
The Filesystem
Controlling processes
Adding users
devices and drivers
serial devices
adding a disk
periodic processes
backups
syslog files
configuring the kernel
tcp/ip
network hardware
DNS
Network file system
sharing files
the internet
electronic mail
network management
security
usenet news
printing
disk space management
hardware maintenance
accounting
performance analysis
daemons
Course Objectives
Student should obtain competency in installing, configuring and operating Windows XP Pro and Fedora Core Linux. In addition, the student should understand how to obtain updates and further software for installation.
Outcomes Assessment
We will utilize standardized A+ certification testing
preparation tests to determine the student's competency in these areas.
Your grade will be determined based on the following percentages.
NOTE: I reserve the right to revise these percentages at any time during the term.
A final raw score value for the course for each student will be determined using the percentages above. The grade distribution will then be analyzed and a final determination of a letter grade will be made based upon the student's position within the distribution. The raw score numbers have no meaning in relation to a letter grade using the traditional scales of 90-100, 80-90, etc. The only way to approximate your eventual letter grade outcome for the course is to analyze your position in the distribution after each raw score has been achieved. For this reason, I will post the distribution of the grades on the course web pages for each graded component..
Other texts you may find helpful.