ICS 612: Operating Systems

Edo Biagioni

Department of Information and Computer Science

esb@hawaii.edu, http://www2.ics.hawaii.edu/~esb/
Lectures are Mondays and Wednesdays at 3pm in POST 127.
textbook: "Operating Systems Design and Implementation" (Third Edition), Andrew Tanenbaum, Albert Woodhull, (Prentice-Hall).
for the textbook, you should use the 2006 (3rd) edition
n projects (there were 6 projects in 2007), 2 exams and a final, one presentation.
office hours: Mondays 2-2:45, Thursdays 3-4. Also by appointment, by email or phone, or when my door is open and I am not otherwise busy.

much flexibility, what follows is tentative
hands-on operating system development: Minix
operating system fundamentals: processes, storage, resource management, security
varieties of operating systems:
- distributed: network file systems, multiprocessors, grid computing
- embedded (TinyOS)
- historical: Multics, Mach, Amoeba
device drivers
shells
compared to ICS 412, much of the same material, but greater depth, more hands-on experimentation, a different system, a greater range of systems studied, and student presentations

might have to design or build parts of them yourself: threading systems, distributed applications, synchronization, security
might want to use them to full advantage, e.g. tuning and customizing, selecting an appropriate product
might find operating systems interesting
general foundation, general knowledge, or mayb ePh.D. qualifying exam

A system administrator manages a machine and configures an operating system, matching requirements to capabilities.
This course may or may not help you become a better system administrator -- if you already are a good system administrator, it may make you a better system administrator, but it will not cover the nuts and bolts
An operating system designer develops a set of requirements and transforms a set of requirements into a design
An operating system developer transforms a design into an operating system, or maintains an operating system by adding device drivers or fixes
An application developer should know what to expect of an operating system, and may have to implement some OS-like features
this course is designed to present information needed by operating system designers and application and operating system developers

deadlock can be very complicated:
- deadlock prevention
- deadlock detection
- deadlock avoidance
- deadlock resolution
many interesting solutions have been proposed
but in most cases, only deadlock prevention is useful and practical
appropriate theory enhances understanding and aids in designing
impractical theory ("theoretical" theory) is interesting, but not as useful, can illustrate why the practical choices are more effective
this course: theory and practice

Minix: a real operating system designed for the study of operating systems (eventually re-designed and re-implemented and much expanded by Linus Thorvalds)
Minix runs on PC architectures, should be small enough to be entirely understandable within one course (except hard disk driver)
Minix is well documented in our textbook

embedded system, e.g. for a sensor controller, must execute tasks in a certain sequence and at certain times
embedded system, e.g. for a car, may have to react to commands from the user and to sensor inputs, e.g. so as to control airbags
server, e.g. for a web page or for a collection of virtual machines, may have to assign resources so the services are performed at a minimum cost in hardware, and must provide security
user workstation, must provide security and assign resources so user gets quick response, and also must be very flexible (general purpose)
compute engine may have to manage multiple tightly coupled processors with shared memory so as many computations as possible complete as soon as possible
distributed operating system has to do all of the above, but also provide redundancy and robustness in case of failure of one or more subsystems
grid computing system has to deal with widespread fluctuation in processor availability and capability, and may have to protect against computers that perform malicious operations

mostly user, some design work
Multics, 1978
Unix, 1979, 1985-2011 (including SunOS, Solaris)
some DEC real-time system, 1980-1982
Data General operating system, 1982
MS-DOS and windows, 1982-2011
VAX VMS, 1982-1985
Apple II operating system and P-machine, 1982-1985
Medos-2, 1982-1985
custom-built computer, 1982-1985
Apple Lisa and Macintosh, 1980s
operating system concepts for experimental research machine (simulated but never built), 1985-1991
Xinu, 1986?
operating system for the MasPar 1024-node machine, 1989-1991
control software for a network switch, 1992-1994
Mach, 1993-1997
Foxnet network stack with some operating system functions, 1993-1997
Linux, 1994-2011
Hello operating system, 1998-1999
Minix, 2004-2011
TinyOS, 2001-2004