Description and goals
This course is an introduction to operating systems.
The goals are for you to learn three sets of interrelated things. The
first thing is how operating systems and, more generally, computers
work. Students graduating with CS degrees should believe "there is no
magic": they should be able to describe the chain of events that occurs
when they hit a key and cause a letter to appear on the screen from the
register level (or logical gate level or transistor level) to the system
architecture level to the operating system level to the application
level. This is philosophically important, but it is also of practical
interest to developers who need to figure out how to make a system do
what they want it to do.
The second goal is for you to learn the core ideas in operating
systems: virtual addressing, memory protection, concurrent programming,
file systems, scheduling, transactions, etc. Often, but not always, such
ideas are best explained as abstractions that some software layer
(usually
the operating system) provides above imperfect hardware to make that
hardware
usable by programmers and users. The intent is for you to understand
such abstractions well enough to be able to synthesize new abstractions
when faced with new problems.
Many of the ideas and abstractions that we will cover are relevant
not only to OS kernels but also to many large-scale systems. Thus, a
third goal of this course (which is more like a beneficial side effect)
is to enhance your ability to understand, design, and implement such
systems.
The work
Besides twice-weekly lectures, the class will consist of
assigned readings, labs, homeworks, and exams:
- The readings are summarized below. The assigned readings
should be completed before class.
- The labs are a crucial component of this course and
are described in more detail here. You will
implement (the interesting pieces of) a real operating system that will
boot on a PC.
- The homeworks will not count for your grade but rather will
be exercises that are just that: exercises. (These homeworks shouldn't
be confused with the labs, and their included exercises, which do count for
your grade.) The intent is for you to use
them as self-exams to assess your understanding of the material, and
evaluate your performance, all without affecting your grade. Of course,
the lack of an actual grade or a deadline for completing these problem
sets may be an invitation for procrastination or even ignoring this
process altogether. But we trust that you will find this a useful aspect
of the class and we strongly urge you to take advantage of it. To make
effective use of this feature, complete the homeworks by the specified
deadline. Delaying the homeworks with the intent of accumulating them
and solving them at once before the exams is not likely to be an
effective strategy.
- The exams are described here.
Finally, you are responsible for checking the announcements (either on the site
or by RSS) every 24 hours.
A note about the labs
We recommend that you start the labs long before they are due. The
standard advice is "Start the labs early", but that is not quite right.
The best advice that we know of is "Start the labs on time, but on time
is probably much earlier than you think".
Readings
- Required: Modern Operating Systems (third edition), Andrew S. Tanenbaum.
(Prentice Hall, Inc., 2008. ISBN: 0-13-600663-9.) There will be assigned
readings from this book. If you don't want to buy this edition, note
that it is on reserve at PCL. Also, the second edition of the book
will probably be fine, but we cannot guarantee that.
- Required: Assigned handouts
- Optional: Operating System Concepts (eighth edition), Abraham
Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, and Greg Gagne. (John Wiley & Sons,
2008. ISBN: 0-47-012872-0.) This book may be a useful reference. It too
is on reserve at PCL.
- Optional: The C programming language (second edition), Brian W.
Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. (Prentice Hall, Inc., 1988. ISBN:
0-13-110362-8.) This book is a classic reference to C.