ICS 412: Operating Systems

This page is http://www2.ics.hawaii.edu/~esb/2006fall.ics412/index.html

This page is subject to change without notice -- please reload it in your browser if an item that might affect you may have changed.

Instructor: Edo Biagioni, esb@hawaii.edu. See here for office hours.

This class meets MWF 9:30-10:20 in Kuykendall 308.


Goals

In this course, students will:

Organization

This course has homework assignments, projects, and exams.

All students are required to join the course mailing list.

Grades are assigned based on your performance on:

Grading will use the (nearly) standard cutoffs of 97% (A+), 93% (A), 90% (A-), 87% (B+), 83% (B), 80% (B-), 77% (C+), 70% (C), 67% (D+), 63% (D), 60% (D-) (no C- will be assigned, due to UH not considering a C- a passing grade for many purposes). Depending on the performance of the class as a whole, I may or may not grade more generously (i.e. grade on a curve), but students should assume that I will not.

Homeworks and projects must be turned in on time, and will only be accepted late for very good reasons. You must do well on the homeworks and projects to do well in this class. Exams may be taken early, if requested at least two weeks before the scheduled time.

Projects will require a computer on which to install Linux (kernel version 2.6.17.11, available from kernel.org). This may be a system you already own, perhaps that you are willing to dual-boot or on which you are willing to install a simulator, e.g. Bochs, Qemu, or Vmware, (there is also Plex86, but it does not appear to be very active at this time -- also, vmware seems to have a 30-day free trial, but be sure you have a plan for what happens at the end of the 30 days. Finally, one student suggests using the free VMware player after creating a machine image with easyvmx), or may be a system borrowed for the purpose (by way of the instructor) from the Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation. If you need such a system, please email the instructor as soon as possible, but in any case no later than Monday, August 28th.

There are two textbooks, both required. The first is "Modern Operating Systems", by Andrew Tanenbaum (2nd edition, 2001). The textbook has a home page. The second textbook is "Linux Kernel Development", by Robert Love (2nd edition, 2005). This textbook also has a home page.

Both textbook should be available from the UH bookstore, other bookstores in Honolulu, and online sellers.

I re-use these course material, so I am always grateful when students can suggest improvements or corrections to any notes. I normally acknowledge authors of major new material, and do not acknowledge people who suggest minor improvements.

In this course, it is fine for students to collaborate on finding solutions for homeworks and projects, but whatever you turn in must have been written by you and be in your own words (and drawings, where needed). Note that collaboration must be a two-way street, so copying does not count as collaboration. You may only collaborate with other students who are taking ICS 412 this semester -- collaborating with anybody else will definitely be considered cheating. Some of the homework and project solutions may be found on the web -- you are welcome to consult and use such material, but if you do so:

All homeworks are turned in individually, all project may be done individually or in groups.


Cheating Policy: any cheating will result in a grade of 0 for the assignment or exam the first time it is detected, and a grade of F for the course for any subsequent instance. There is to be no collaboration whatsoever on exams: you may study together, but anything you turn in on an exam must be entirely your own intellectual contribution. The outreach college's instructor's manual states, in part:

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, submitting, to satisfy an academic requirement, any document that has been copied in whole or in part from another individual's work without identifying that individual.
The UH law school also has a good definition of plagiarism, including the following:
The submission or presentation of any work, in any form, that is not a student's own, without acknowledgment of the source.
If you have any questions, please contact the instructor.

Schedule

This schedule is subject to change.

Presentation notes are in HTML. I usually post notes no later than the day before the lecture.


The final exam covers the entire course. The final exam for this course is on Monday, Dec 11th at 9:45am in Kuykendall 308. If you wish to take the final early, please contact the instructor by Thursday November 30th.