Operating Systems
CSCI-GA.2250-001, Summer 2017

General Information

Lecture:	Mon 6:00P - 8:20P Weaver CIWW 101
Instructor:	Hubertus Franke, frankeh@cs.nyu.edu
TAs/Graders:	Salil Kapur, sk6829@nyu.edu
Office Hours: and TA Assignment	[0-9] Hubertus Franke: Mon 8:20 - 9:20 PM after class or if private (Room Weaver 320) [A-Z] Salil Kapur: Thu 3:30 - 5:00 PM (13th floor lounge) You can go to any office hour, but grading related stuff you need to talk to your assigned TA.
Prerequisites:	Common CS knowledge and programming skills. Four labs consisting of approximately 500-600 lines of code each (give and take). Expect at least 20hrs per lab, typically spread over 3 weeks. This class is designated as a class to emphasize programming in C/C++ and as most operating systems are written in C this is a perfect opportunity to pick this skill up. As a result all labs will have to be coded in C/C++. Learning how to become proficient in C/C++ is one side goal of this class. Expect to learn C/C++ through self study over the first 3 weeks. If necessary, an extra session will be provide to get you up to speed, which will take place after class ( > 8:20PM ).
Text book:	Author: Andrew Tannenbaum Title: Modern Operating Systems Edition: 4th (you will also survive 3rd) Publisher: Prentice Hall ISBN-13: 978-0-12-3591720 or 978-0-13-6006663-2 ISBN-10: 0-13-359172X or 0-13-600663-9

Course Description

• OS histories, i.e. types of operating systems and what which one stuck,
• protected kernels,
• processes and threads,
• concurrency and synchronization, deadlocks and preventions,
• memory management, virtual memory and computer architecture facilitating it (pagetables, segmentation),
• file systems,
• secondary storage.

Examples will be from Unix/Linux. Programming assignments will be based on C or C++ as Operatings Systems are implemented that way. You will initially not be required to have C or C++ knowledge, but after the first of four labs you will have to move over to C/C++. Each of the four labs is approximately 600 lines of code.

Grades

Grades are based on the labs, the midterm and final exam, each being important. The weighting will be:

Lab Assignments	60%
Final	40%

This is a graduate level class, so I am looking for lively interactions during the class and not just presence.
The final will be given on 8/7/2017.

Class Materials, Handouts, Lectures and Assignments (will be made avail before classes)

Computer Accounts and Mailman Mailing List

• You must have a computer account on the NYU CIMS linux machines. If you do not have one already, please get it asap.
• We are getting rid of the mailing lists, all communication should go through NYU classes
• General questions on the labs should go to the NYU Classes forum You may answer questions posed on the forum as well.
• If you want to send mail just to me, use frankeh@cs.nyu.edu
• I will respond to all questions; if another student has answered the question before I get to it, I will confirm if the answer given is correct. Silence on my end means "OK".

Several labs (programming assignments) across the semester will provide practical implementations of operating system concepts such as processor scheduling and memory management. These assignments are accepted in C or C++.

Labs (aka programming assignments)

• Due several lectures later (date given on assignment).
• Graded and form part of your final grade.
• Penalized for lateness. The penalty is 2 points per day. Start your lab early and finish on time !!! You can submit upto one week late after which we will not assess further late points. You can submit as often you like until the due date, at which point grading starts and no further submission are permitted. Once a late submission is submitted, grading will be conducted with the late points being assessed.
• Computer programs YOU must write.
• We are using multiple code checkers to verify originality against several years, though some of the assignments have since evolved.

Doing Labs on non-NYU Systems

You may solve lab assignments on any system you wish, but ...

• You are responsible for any non-nyu machine. I extend deadlines if the nyu machines are down, not if yours are.
• Be sure to test your assignments on the nyu systems. In an ideal world, a program written in a high level language like C that works on your system would also work on the NYU system used by the grader. Sadly, this ideal is not always achieved despite marketing claims that it is achieved. So, although you may develop your lab on any system, you must ensure that it runs on the nyu system assigned to the course. Thank you.

Obtaining Help with the Labs

Good methods for obtaining help include

1. Asking the TA during office hours (see web page for their hours).
2. Asking me during office hours or after class (see web page for my hours).
3. Asking the forum or the NYU Classes forum (preferred).
4. Asking another student, but ...
   Keep the discussion at the abstract level
   Your lab must be your own.
   That is, each student must submit a unique lab. Naturally, simply changing comments, variable names, restructuring, etc. does not produce a unique lab and code verification easily identifies these.

Publicly storing your code such as GITHUB

See also