Operating Systems (Fall 2018)

Course Outline

Here is the course outline for COMP 3000: Operating Systems.

Lectures, Tests, & Project

Note that the topics below are primarily chapters from the class textbook, Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces. Note that while introductory and summary dialogues are not linked below, they are worth reading for an informal take on the material.

Assigned readings are subject to change, please check this page each week.

Date	Topic
Sept. 5	Lecture 1: Introduction
Sept. 7	Lecture 2: Process API
Sept. 12	Lecture 3: Processes
Sept. 14	Lecture 4: Virtual Machines
Sept. 19	Lecture 5: Files and Directories
Sept. 21	Lecture 6
Sept. 26	Lecture 7
Sept. 28	Lecture 8
Oct. 3	Lecture 9: Concurrency & Threads, Locks, Semaphores
Oct. 5	Lecture 10 (via cuLearn/BigBlueButton)
Oct. 10	Lecture 11: Test 1 review
Oct. 12	Test 1 (solutions)
Oct. 17	Lecture 12
Oct. 19	Lecture 13
Oct. 31	Lecture 14: Address Translation, Segmentation, Free Space Management, Paging, TLBs
Nov. 2	Lecture 15
Nov. 7	Lecture 16
Nov. 9	Lecture 17
Nov. 14	Lecture 18
Nov. 16	Lecture 19
Nov. 21	Lecture 20: Test 2 Review
Nov. 23	Test 2
Nov. 28	Lecture 21
Nov. 30	Lecture 22
Dec. 12	Project due

Tutorials

Each week you will get a progress grade from 0-4, given to you by a TA. If you are being diligent, you should be able to get 4's every week. The easiest way to get your grade is to come to tutorial and meet with your TA; alternately, you can meet a TA in their office hours or, at their discretion, discuss things with them online. Tutorials from before Test 1 should be completed by Test 1, and similarly tutorials for Test 2 should be completed before Test 2 (if you wish to receive credit).

Date	Tutorials
Sept. 10,11	Processes and System Calls
Sept. 17, 18	3000shell.c
Sept. 24, 25	3000test.c
Oct. 1, 2	3000pc.c
Oct. 15, 16	Linux kernel modules
Oct. 29, 30	Filesystems
Nov. 5, 6	Kernel memory management
Nov. 12, 13	FUSE and kernel tracing

Assignments

Assignments are due before class on the due dates (2:30 PM).

Due Date	Assignments
Sept. 26	Assignment 1
Oct. 10	Assignment 2
~~Nov. 7~~ Nov. 9	Assignment 3
Nov. 21	Assignment 4

Course Software

In this course we will primarily working with Ubuntu, a widely-used family of Linux distributions. We will be using Ubuntu Server on the SCS's Openstack installation (accessible only from the Carleton network).

You may use other Linux distributions to complete the assigned work; there will be differences, however, in some aspects (such as installing software), particularly if you use a distribution not based on Ubuntu or Debian.

Course Project

Must be related to operating systems (you have to make the argument if it isn't obvious).
Implementation or literature review project
Implementation
- Write code!
- Do something interesting!
- Write a report! Make sure it has references and an evaluation section as appropriate
- Interesting is subjective - run it by me first
- Implementation projects will be graded on the difficulty of what is being attempted, what you accomplished, the quality of the writing, and how well you explained what you did (design and implementation)
- Be sure to submit your source code along with your report
Literature review
- Start with a research paper related to OS
- Choose some aspect of it
- Find related papers
- Write a report that tells me about how they all connect
- make sure to cite papers properly (bibliography and inline citations)
- Literature reviews will be graded on the quality of writing, technical quality, and quality of references
Collaboration is allowed in pairs, and you can turn in one project...but you should explain in your report who did what.

You should run your project ideas by Prof. Somayaji by November 19th.

Resources you may find helpful: Google Scholar, OSDI 2018, SOSP, Past USENIX conferences

To help you write a literature review, read the following:

Harvey, "What Is a Literature Review?" (DOC) (PPT)
Taylor, "The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It"

Contributing Notes

The instructions and guidelines for contributing notes to the wiki can be found here.

Online Resources

Other than the textbook, there are many, many other good online sources of information about operating systems. Here are a few that may be of interest:

Jian Huang's Systems Programming notes

How to Succeed and How to Fail in COMP 3000

While the use of outside resources is acceptable, even encouraged, use them to achieve understanding rather than answers.

It is very possible to get full tutorial marks by doing little more than showing up, and assignments can be quickly finished (and you can even get most of the marks) by working with partners, looking at old assignments, and doing lots of online searches. If this is all you do, however, you will fail the tests and you won't get a very good grade in the course.

Successful students use the tutorials and assignments as learning opportunities. They look at the code and ask "what does that do?" - not just in a general sense, but by looking at every line and asking why it is there. They modify the code in order to better understand it, and when they are confused they ask questions until they get the answers they need. This sort of learning takes time, generally much more than the time allocated for lectures and tutorials. A tutorial is only "finished" when you understand essentially all the material in it - not when 80 minutes are up.

If you find you are confused about the concepts, make sure to read and review the textbook and the Linux man pages. They provide much deeper answers than most online resources. The tutorials are designed to help you ask the right questions - the textbook and manual pages (and the lectures) help provide the answers.

Take the tutorials seriously. Understand the answers for all the questions on the assignments. Use the textbook and manual pages. Ask questions.

Good luck!