CS 372H, Spring 2012: Introduction to Operating Systems: Honors

Latest Announcements

5/18: Final grades have gone to the registrar.

The class is over. Have a nice summer!

5/18: All scores posted. Final grades will go to registrar soon.

Final exam scores are on blackboard. Final project scores are also on blackboard and so are participation grades. The latter two are out of 10. A 10 on the project was a truly outstanding project. A 9 was competently executed, with some flaws. An 8 meant that there were some major flaws and/or a fairly big gap between what was promised and what was delivered. Etc. The scores for participation/preparedness we determined by looking at your "accuracy" (roughly, your ratio of right to wrong answers this term), at our subjective sense of your classroom contribution, and at attendance.

5/11: Solutions to final exam posted

Solutions to the final are posted on the exams page. Please let us know if you see any errors.

5/8: Notes from review/study session posted here and on schedule page

5/7: Final will be closed book, but you can bring TWO two-sided sheets of notes

As with the midterm, you may bring sheets of notes. Note that whereas for the midterm you had ONE two-sided sheet, for the final, you may bring TWO two-sided sheets, for a total of four sides of printing. As with the midterm, we have formatting requirements for each sheet. Here they are: Times New Roman font, minimum 10 point font, minimum 1 inch margins on all sides, maximum 55 lines per side (which is a busy single-spaced sheet). Do not exceed 1 inch margins, even if it means that you cannot fit 55 lines per side. If you use handwriting, same deal: your handwriting should be no smaller than 10pt, your margins should be at least 1 inch, etc., etc.

5/7: Part II of the CS372H poetry series: The Halting Problem's undecidability, in poetry

The halting problem came up a few times this semester; this poem presents it perfectly.

5/4: Part I of the CS372H poetry series: The story of Mel

You may enjoy the story of Mel, a classic folk tale. Recently, people (re)learned that Mel is real.

4/30: Clarification on lab 7, part B

There was no mention of relaxing the pair programming requirements in the lab. This is fixed, and an e-mail you should have received elaborates further.

4/29: No office hours this Friday or any more Fridays this term

If you want to meet, email to set up an appointment.

4/20: Demos are Monday, 5/14 and Tuesday, 5/15

Please sign up for a demo slot in the afternoon of Monday, May 14, morning of Tuesday, May 15, or late afternoon of Tuesday, May 15. An email with the link will be, or was sent, to all of you.

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Description and goals

This course is for students who want to hack on operating systems and more generally learn how they work. Class meetings will cover operating systems, advanced topics in systems, and research papers (both classic and recent). A significant fraction of classes will involve discussion. A crucial component of the course is the labs: students will implement the core of an exokernel- or microkernel-style operating system, called JOS.

The work

The class consists of lectures, discussion days, labs, exams, readings, homeworks, and background sections:

• The lectures will cover topics in operating systems and advanced topics in systems.
• Some class meetings will be discussion days instead of lecture. On those days, students are expected to come prepared, and will be randomly called on. This ensures equitable participation and encourages students to keep up. The format and expectations for these classes are described here.
• The labs are described in more detail here. You will implement (the interesting pieces of) a real operating system that will boot on a PC.
• The exams are described here.
• The readings should be completed before class. Some are assigned, and some are called background. The latter type provides background that we will assume you have. See below for more detail.
• The homeworks serve a similar function to the background readings (and some of you will have seen the homework problems before). Unless a problem is announced as specifically required (in which case it counts in the participation and preparedness component of your grade), it is not required. However, we will build on this material. Moreover, if the homework problems are new to you, then they will be valuable and perhaps necessary exercises. Note in that case that 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. Do them on time! (These homeworks shouldn't be confused with the labs and their included exercises.)
• The background sections, led by Jason, serve a similar function to the background readings and the homeworks. Attendance is not required, but if you did not take 439H or 372, you should go. You should also go if you feel a bit shaky on the knowledge that we are assuming.

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 and references

There will be two kinds of readings in this class: required and background. The background reading covers foundational material that we will assume that you know. Do you have this background? Should you do this reading? One guideline is this: if you've taken CS439H, CS372, or the equivalent, you probably already have this background. However, you may wish to look over this reading anyway just to make sure. If you've taken only CS352 or CS352H, then you should probably do this reading.

• Required: readings listed on the schedule page
• Background: readings listed on the schedule page, most of which will be from this textbook:
  • Modern Operating Systems (third edition), Andrew S. Tanenbaum. (Prentice Hall, Inc., 2008. ISBN: 0-13-600663-9.) If you don't want to buy this edition, note that it should be on reserve at PCL. Also, the second edition of the book will probably be fine, but we cannot guarantee that.
• Optional: Principles of Computer System Design: An Introduction, Jerome Saltzer and M. Frans Kaashoek (Morgan Kaufmann, 2009. ISBN: 0-12-374957-3.) This book may be a useful reference. It too is on reserve at PCL.
• 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. It too is on reserve at PCL.

We made the reserve requests in the first week of class. If you have problems retrieving the books, please let the course staff know.

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