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Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces Version 1.00 (Available free online!) |
Course Objectives
This course covers the principles of operating systems. It emphasizes the basic concepts of OS kernel organization and structure, processes and threads, concurrency and synchronization, memory management, file systems, and communication. It is also a project course, providing essential experience in programming with concurrency, implementing and unmasking abstractions, working within an existing complex system, and collaborating with other students in a group effort.
Course Schedule
The following table outlines the tentative schedule for the course. We will update it as the quarter progresses.
Course Organization
The course is organized as a series of lectures by the instructor, discussion sections by the TAs, reading, homework, and project assignments, and exams:
- Lectures: The lectures present the core of the material.
- Sections: The discussion sections are given by the TAs to answer questions about the lecture, textbook readings, homework assignments, and project assignments.
- Readings: The readings in the textbook provide preparation and a reference for the lectures. Note, however, that they are not a substitute for the lectures.
- Homeworks: There are approximately four homework assignments with questions taken from the textbook and other materials. The homework assignments reinforce the readings and lectures.
- Projects: There are two programming projects, all using the Nachos instructional operating system.
- Exams: There are two exams, a midterm exam in the middle of the quarter and a final exam at the end of the quarter. The exams will cover the material presented in lecture, the homeworks, and the projects.
Homework
The course will have four homeworks. I will post them as the quarter progresses. You will submit all your homework electronically via Canvas. We will reduce homework grades by 20% for each day that they are late.
Due to extensive copying on homeworks in the past, I have changed how homeworks are graded. As long as you submit a technical answer related to the question, you will get full credit for the question. The goal of the homeworks is to give you practice learning the material. The homework questions both supplement and complement the material from lecture and in the project, and you will also find the homework questions to be useful for practicing for the exams. We will post solutions to all homeworks after they are submitted, and you can use them for studying as well. But, even with the solutions, the amount you learn from the homeworks will be directly correlated with your effort working on them.
I encourage you to collaborate on the homeworks: You can learn a lot from your fellow students. Collaboration consists of discussing problems with other students and independently writing your own answers to the problems based upon those discussions. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to discuss a homework problem in the hall with others, go home, and then write up your answer to the problem on your own.
Projects
The course has one tutorial project and two programming projects using the Nachos instructional operating system.
Exams
The course has two exams, a midterm and a final. The midterm will cover the first half of the class, and the final will cover the second half of the class.Discussion Sections
Discussion sections answer questions about the lectures, homeworks, projects, and programming environment. They may also supplement the lectures with additional material.
Grading
Your grade for the course will be based on your performance on the homeworks, midterm, and (no-fault) final exams, and the three projects using the better letter-grade result of the following two calculations:
- Homeworks: 6%
- Midterm: 21%
- Projects: 50%
- Homeworks: 6%
- Midterm: 18%
- Final: 26%
- Projects: 50%
The academic honesty guidelines outlined by Charles Elkan apply to this course. I urge you to resist any temptation to cheat, no matter how desperate the situation may seem. If you are in circumstances that you feel compel you to cheat, come to me first before you do so.
Supplemental Reading
The supplemental readings include primary sources and in-depth supplements for concepts in the class. Supplemental reading is for your own interest — the readings are not required, nor will you be tested on the material. Note that some of the links to the documents point to the ACM Digital Library. UCSD has a subscription to the ACM Digital Library, so you will need to use a web browser on campus to access them.- The seminal paper on semaphores:
E. W. Dijkstra, The Structure of the 'THE'-Multiprogramming System, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 11, No. 5, May 1968, pp. 341-346.
(Additional historical background on semaphores in Wikipedia)
- The seminal paper on Unix:
D. M. Ritchie and K. Thompson, The UNIX Time-Sharing System, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 17, No. 7, July 1974, pp. 365-375.
- The seminal paper on monitors:
C. A. R. Hoare, Monitors: An Operating System Structuring Concept, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 17, No. 10, October, 1974, pp. 549-557.
- Practical guides to programming with threads on Unix:
Blaise Barney, POSIX Threads Programming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Andrew D. Birrell, An Introduction to Programming with Threads, DEC SRC Research Report 35, January 6, 1989.