However, the complexity of threading is a problem in practice. It seemed as if everyone, in spite of taking operating system classes, needed to experience a deadlock firsthand.Andreas Paepcke, Michelle Baldonado, Chen-Chuan Chang, Steve Cousins, and Hector Garcia-Molina
Using Distributed Objects to Build the Stanford Digital Library Infobus
IEEE Computer, February 1999.
This an introductory course in operating systems concepts. The course is divided into seven two-week sections. See the schedule for details.
You should be a proficient programmer and have a working knowledge of basic algorithms and data structures. The prerequisites for this class are
Class meets in Howard Hall 101 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:25 to 9:15 p.m. First day of class is Tuesday, 2 September; last day of class is Thursday, 11 December. Midterm grades (CS 438 only) are due Tuesday, 21 October. Tuesday, 4 November, is the last day to withdraw from class with a W. There is no class on Thursday, 16 October, (Fall Break) and Thursday, 27 November (Thanksgiving Break).
• indicates a test day.
There are five tests, one at the end of every section except the first (Introduction), fourth (Scheduling) and seventh (I/O Subsystems) sections; see the schedule for details. Tests are given in class, and are closed book with one page of notes allowed; calculators and computers are not necessary. The tests are cumulative, covering everything in the readings up to and including the section containing the test. The whole class period is allocated to the test; once you finish the test, you may leave. Test answers will be made available off the schedule. There are no mid-term or final exams.
Each test has six questions, each question is worth a maximum of eight points for a maximum total of 48 points per test. The grade range is scaled to the 48-point maximum:
42 < A 36 < A– ≤ 42 30 < B+ ≤ 36 24 < B ≤ 30 18 < B– ≤ 24 12 < C+ ≤ 18 6 < C ≤ 12 0 < C– ≤ 6 F ≤ 0
This grade range applies to both CS 438 and CS 505.
The final grade is a straight, unweighted average of the four highest test grades — the lowest test grades is dropped. The final grade comprises four grades total; each constituent grade constitutes one-quarter (25%) of your final grade.
All grades are kept with one digit of precision to the right of the decimal point and 0.05 rounded up. No grades are adjusted to a curve; that means that 89.9 is always B+, never an A-.
The final grades.
There are many operating systems textbooks, all more or less the same. This course has a textbook, but it doesn’t have an assigned textbook. Instead, pick a textbook or two you’re comfortable with. As a first cut, compare the book’s table of contents with the schedule to make sure the topics mentioned in the schedule appear in the table of contents. You can glean further advice from a small annotated bibliography of operating systems books.
Please do not interpret “There’s no assigned textbook for this course” to mean “Great! I don’t need a textbook.” Absorbing everything you need to know from lectures won’t be possible, not the least because there won’t be time to cover everything in lectures. Working it out over a textbook or two will give you the time and space to learn what you need to know. In addition, the tests are written assuming knowledge found in basic operating systems textbooks.
Lecture notes and reading assignments were prepared using Operating System Concepts by Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Galvin, and Greg Gagne. If you have no idea what to do, you should at least get a copy of this book.
Mail relevant to the class will be stored in a
hyper-mail archive (
tinyurl.com/mucsosf14m ). If your message is of general interest to the class, I’ll
store it, suitably stripped of identification and along with my answer, in the
archive.
www.monmouth.edu/~rclayton/web-pages/f14-os/index.html ( tinyurl.com/mucsosf14h
). I’ll make the class notes, assignments, and tests available off
the schedule at
www.monmouth.edu/~rclayton/web-pages/f14-os/schedule.html (
tinyurl.com/mucsosf14s ); you should get in the habit of checking the schedule regularly.
vimeo.com. Screencasting is
experimental, and lecture availability will most likely be unreliable.
twitter.com/mucsos ).
My attendance policy applies only to lecture attendance; it does not apply to other kinds of attendance which may be required for the course. Repeated failures to meet the attendance expectations set for tests, meetings, projects, labs or other forms of course work will have a bad influence on your grade.
Monmouth University does have a class attendance policy, which you can find in the Academic Information chapter of the Student Handbook. To the extent that I need to keep the record straight, I will take attendance. Attendance lists, however, are entirely for the University’s benefit; I will make no use of them in grading.
First, the only complaint that matters is that something got marked wrong when it was actually right. When you come to complain, be prepared to present, in explicit detail, what it is you did and why you think it’s right.
Second, complaints about a particular test or assignment are only valid until the next test or assignment is due; after that point the book is permanently closed on all previous test or assignment grades.
There may occasionally be a conflict between taking a test and doing something else, particularly among those working full time. If you’re going to be out of town, or on jury duty, or whatever, on a test day, let me know beforehand and we’ll discuss a make-up test.
A make-up test must be scheduled to be taken by the date of the test following the missed test (or the final exam if you miss the last test). If a missed test is not made up by the time of the next test, you get a zero for the missed test.
There will be only one make up given per missed test. If more than one person misses the same test, those people will have to coordinate among themselves to pick a mutually agreeable date for the make up.
Learn about operating systems from the comfort of your home, courtesy of Berkeley or Notre Dame (via iTunes, unfortunately).
An OS web ring.
OS News, a web site with os news and opinions.
The ER and KeyK OSs from U. Penn.
And let us not forget the dearly departed: OS/2, multics.
And let us welcome the newcomers: V2, the Gemini nucleus, the NewOS, and AtheOS.
An operating system for a calculator.