This section is concerned with the topic of process synchronization among concurrently executing processes. Concurrency is generally very hard for students to deal with correctly, and so we have tried to introduce it and its problems with the classic process coordination problems: mutual exclusion, bounded-buffer, readers/writers, and so on. An understanding of these problems and their solutions is part of current operating system theory and development.

Additionally, students need to understand the effect that languages have on the way that we try to solve problems, and be familiar with critical regions and monitors.