CSE150 Operating Systems (Spring semester 2008)

Instructor

Miguel Á. Carreira-Perpiñán Assistant professor Electrical Engineering and Computer Science School of Engineering University of California, Merced mcarreira-perpinan-[at]-ucmerced.edu; 209-2284545 Office: 284, Science & Engineering Building

Office hours: Wednesdays 3:30-5pm (SE284).

TA: Oktar Özgen, oozgen-[at]-ucmerced.edu (SE290).

Lectures: Wednesdays 12-2:50pm (COB270)

Lab class: Wednesdays 6:30-10:20pm (Linux Lab, SE138)

Course web page: http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/mcarreira-perpinan/CSE150

Course description

Concepts of computer operating systems including memory management, file systems, multitasking, performance analysis, and security.

Prerequisites: CSE31

Textbook

Required textbook (get the errata and additional errata):

Andrew S. Tanenbaum: Modern Operating Systems, 3rd ed. Prentice-Hall, 2008.

The companion site for the book has additional materials (slides, etc.). There are also simulators available.

Other books recommended as additional reading:

Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Albert S. Woodhull: Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, 3rd ed. Prentice-Hall, 2006. Another OS textbook by the same author but with an emphasis on OS design, and containing the C source code for MINIX.
Avi Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin and Greg Gagne: Operating System Concepts, 7th ed. Wiley, 2005. Another good OS textbook.
Maurice J. Bach: Design of the UNIX Operating System. Prentice-Hall, 1986.
Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder and Trent R. Hein: Linux Administration Handbook, 2nd ed. Prentice-Hall, 2007. A useful reference for Linux and Unix system administration.
Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie: The C Programming Language, 2nd ed. Prentice-Hall, 1988. A useful C reference.
Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.: The Mythical Man-Month, Addison-Wesley, 1995. An insightful book on software project management.

Syllabus and required textbook reading

Before each class, you should have read the corresponding part of the textbook. I will teach the material in the order below (which is more or less the order in the book):

Ch. 1: Introduction.
Ch. 2: Processes and Threads.
Ch. 3: Memory Management.
Ch. 4: File Systems.
Ch. 5: Input/Output.

Make sure to refer to the case studies in chapters 10-12 (particularly ch. 10 on Linux) as specific implementations of the concepts discussed in class.

If time permits, I'll also teach part of the following material:

Ch. 6: Deadlocks.
Ch. 7: Multimedia Operating Systems.
Ch. 8: Multiple Processor Systems.
Ch. 9: Security.
Ch. 10: Case Study 1: Linux.
Ch. 11: Case Study 2: Windows Vista.
Ch. 12: Case Study 3: Symbian OS.
Ch. 13: Operating System Design.

Handouts, projects and lab assignments

I will suggest exercises from the textbook for you to do and give solutions for them. They will not count towards your final grade, but I strongly recommend that you try to solve as many of the book exercises on your own ahead of time.
Lab sessions:
- Linux usage basics
- Threads and IPC
Projects (to be submitted and graded):
- Project #1 due April 30, in groups of 1 or 2 students. Late projects will get a grade of zero.

The following tools will be useful for the lab work (they are all installed in the Linux lab):

Text editors: XEmacs (reference card), vi.
Text processing: LaTeX
Programming tools (check their respective man pages): gcc, as, ld, od, xxd, gdb, xxgdb, ddd, ar, nm, objcopy, objdump, readelf, size, gcov, gprof, oprofile. See also Linux System Administration and Configuration.

Course grading

Midterm exam (30%): in-class, partly closed-book, consisting of problems and conceptual questions.
Final exam (30%): as the midterm.
Lab projects (40%).

While I encourage you to discuss your work with other students, the projects and the exam must be the result of your own work without collaboration.

Grade curves: as of Apr. 30 and final.