COSC 3250 Operating Systems

This is a course on operating systems concepts, with an emphasis on building a small embedded operating system on modern RISC hardware. Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

Understand the basic concepts of operating system process control, synchronization, and scheduling;
Understand the concepts and technologies involved with operating system memory management, secondary storage, and file systems;
Understand the impact of operating system concepts on concurrency, distributed systems, protection and security;
Design and modify the components of an operating system; and
Read and write programs in the C language using the UNIX toolchain.

For those of you interested in curriculum details, this course will correspond to the following components in the Joint ACM / IEEE Computer Society Taskforce report, Computer Science Curricula 2013: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Computer Science:

Knowledge Unit	Core-Tier 1 Hours	Core-Tier 2 Hours
Operating Systems (OS)	4	11

Grades

Grades will be calculated using the following formula:

Projects	60%	Weekly individual or team projects and homework assignments
Lab Participation	5%	Participation in weekly laboratory activities
Midterm Exams	20%	Midterm exams
Final Exam	15%	Final exam

Grades will be assigned using the standard formula: A: [93, 100]; A-: [90, 93); B+: [86, 90); B: [82, 86); B-: [78, 82); C+: [74, 78); C: [70, 74); C-: [66, 70); D+: [62, 66); D: [58, 62); F: [0, 58)
At the instructor's discretion, grades may be "curved" up; grades will not be curved down.

Grades will be routinely posted in the gradebook on the course D2L site, as they become available.

Attendance

Student attendance will not be explicitly tracked in this course, and will not directly impact student grades. However, students who routinely miss class discussions or lectures should expect to be unprepared to complete the assignments and exams upon which grades so heavily depend. In short, I don't bother with attendance bean-counting because students who cut class usually fail themselves out of the course before I would need to take any action. Make good decisions.

If you know you will be missing class for a legitimate reason, I appreciate a heads-up, but in accordance with Marquette University Attendance Policies, neither require nor accept documented excuses, except in those specific cases detailed in the policy above. Please try to have a peer in the class take notes in your absence, and get any assignments in ahead of the deadline.

The size and structure of this course will not normally allow me to accept late work under any circumstances. There are enough opportunities for points in the course for most students to miss a few without severe consequences for their grades.

Academic Integrity

All students are expected to abide by Marquette University's Policy on Academic Integrity, and we will proceed under the assumption that everyone has committed themselves to the University's Honor Pledge:

I recognize the importance of personal integrity in all aspects of life and work. I commit myself to truthfulness, honor, and responsibility, by which I earn the respect of others. I support the development of good character, and commit myself to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity as an important aspect of personal integrity. My commitment obliges me to conduct myself according to the Marquette University Honor Code.

The Honor Code has particular implications for computer scientists and engineers, as well as computing professors, whose course work is so readily duplicated and shared in our modern digital world.

For my part, I will strive to ensure that your assignments and exams are engaging, challenging, and worth your investment in time and energy. For your part, I expect you will work hard, strive to learn, and present your work with honesty and integrity.

There will be many opportunities for you to collaborate with your peers in this course, and I strongly encourage you both to seek help when you are stuck, and to share your knowledge with your peers when you have achieved understanding. Problems will only occur if you falsely claim work as your own when it is not, or collaborate when an exam or assignment has been specified to be individual work.

In the unlikely event of an academic integrity violation in this course, Marquette University's Procedures For Incidents of Academic Dishonesty will be closely followed.

Week	Topics	Readings	Assignments
01	Introduction and Overview C basics, Representation, Operators	KR Ch 1-5	Project 1: UNIX and C
02	C structs, Pointers, I/O	KR Ch 6-8	Project 2: UNIX and C
03	Virtualization; Concurrency; Persistence	OSTEP Ch 1-4	Project 3: Serial Driver
04	Processes; Context; Trap Handlers	OSTEP Ch 5-8	Project 4: Context Switch
05	Process Scheduling	OSTEP Ch 9-12	Project 5: Trap Handlers
06	Address Spaces; Memory API	OSTEP Ch 13-16
07	Address Translation; Memory Management	OSTEP Ch 17-20	Project 6: Process Scheduling
08	Paging; TLBs; Concurrency	OSTEP Ch 25,26	Project 7: Memory Protection
SB	Spring Break
09	Threads; Locks	OSTEP Ch 27-30
10	Condition Variables; Semaphores	OSTEP Ch 31-37	Project 8: Heap Management
11	File Systems Easter Break	OSTEP Ch 38-41
12	Easter Break Mass Storage Systems	OSTEP Ch 42-46
13	File Systems	OSTEP Ch 21-24	Project 9: Threads
14	Virtual Memory	OSTEP Ch 52-56	Project 10: File Systems
15	Security

The instructor reserves the right to adjust this schedule as necessary.

Mon	12:00pm	-	1:00pm
Mon	9:00pm	-	10:00pm
Wed	12:00pm	-	1:00pm
Fri	10:00am	-	11:00am

Thu	10:00am	-	11:50am	CU 310	Alex
Thu	Noon	-	1:50pm	CU 310	Jake
Thu	2:00pm	-	3:50pm	CU 310	Anthony
Fri	10:00am	-	11:50am	CU 310	Sam

Mon	5:00pm	-	7:00pm	CU 310	Jake
Mon	7:00pm	-	9:00pm	CU 310	Alex
Tue	6:00pm	-	8:00pm	CU 310	Anthony
Fri	12:00pm	-	2:00pm	CU 310	Sam

Textbooks

Course Outcomes

Course Policies

Grades

Attendance

Academic Integrity

Schedule