CompSci 143A - Principles of Operating Systems - Spring, 2013 (Dillencourt) [CrossListed as CSE 104]

Contents

• Final Exam Time
• Class meetings
• Instructor
• Teaching Assistant
• Reader(s)
• Email for questions
• Course Announcements
• Course Prerequisites
• Drops/Adds
• Textbook
• Grading
• Regrade policy
• Homework Assignments
• Academic Dishonesty (cheating)
• Course notes
• Course Schedule and syllabus

Final Exam

• The Regular Final Exam will be held Tuesday, June 11, 6:30-8:30PM in DBH 1100.
• If you have a conflict with the Regular Final Exam, click here. The deadline for requesting permission to take the Backup Final Exam is Friday, May 17, at 6PM. This deadline is firm.

  Class meetings

  • Lecture: MWF 4:00pM-4:50PM DBH 1100 (Prof. Dillencourt)
  • Discussion Sections: MW 5:00-5:50PM (Mr. Bannister)
    • Monday: DBH 1100
    • Wednesday: ICS 174
  • You only need to sign up for one of the discussion sections, but you are strongly encouraged to attend both.

  Instructor

  • Professor Michael Dillencourt
    Email: dillenco at ics dot uci dot edu, but see email for questions below
    Office: DBH 4086
    Office hours: click here.

  Teaching Assistant

  • Mr. Michael Bannister
    Email: mbannist at uci dot edu, but see email for questions below
    Office hours: Friday 10:30-11:30. In DBH 4011 except for Friday May 10 when they will be held in DBH 3011.

  Readers

  • Mr. Fausto Artico
    Email: fausto dot artico at gmail dot com, but see email for questions below.
    Office hours: TBA
    
    
  • Mr. Santanu Sarma
    Email: santanus at uci dot edu but see email for questions below.
    Office hours: TBA

  Email for questions

  • We will make every effort to answer all course-related email promptly and to give helpful answers. You can help us do this by following these simple guidelines:
    • All email with questions about course material should be sent to the following email address: compsci143a-questions@ics.uci.edu. This is an alias for the instructor, the TA, and the Reader(s). Sending your question here ensures that we all see your message and the response. It also gives you better turnaround time.
    • Please include the string "CompSci 143A:" at the beginning of the subject line.
    • Please make the rest of your subject line descriptive. If you have gone to all the trouble to write an email, take a few more seconds and compose a descriptive subject line. Don't just reply to a message if you are asking a new question. If you have a question about Problem Y in Chapter X, "CompSci 143A: Question about Chapter X problem Y" is a much better subject line than "Re: CompSci 143A: announcement"
    • Please include your name and student number in the message.

  Course Announcements

  • Course announcements will be sent via email to all students enrolled in the class.
  • Click here for a link to the archive of these messages. This requires that you sign in to EEE and that you are registered for the class.

  Course prerequisites

  The following are the course prerequisites.
  • ICS 23/CSE23 or ICS 46/CSE46, with grade of C or better.
  • ICS 51 or EECS31/CSE31, with grade of C or better.`
  The following text is taken directly from the Registrar's web site.
  • Henry Samueli School of Engineering comments: All undergraduate Engineering courses strictly enforce published prerequisites. Courses with co-requisites may require you to enroll in the co-requisite requirement before enrolling in the course. If you are unable to enroll and you completed any prerequisites at another college or university, you will need to petition for course authorization, available at the Engineering Student Affairs Office.
    
    Students earning a deficient grade in a prerequisite course after enrolling will be dropped after the first week of class. Students should address any prior grade issues (NR, I, etc.) before the end of Week 1.
    
    FOR ASSISTANCE: If you encounter a problem, check for schedule updates, restriction changes, and changes to course capacities at http://plaza.eng.uci.edu.
    
    
  • Computer Science and Engineering department comments: Prerequisites in CSE courses are strictly enforced.
    
    
  • Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences comments: The School WILL DROP students from courses for which they have not satisfied the prerequisites. If you find you have been dropped from a course, please check the prerequisite list at http://www.ics.uci.edu/ugrad/current/degrees and contact the ICS Student Affairs Office at http://www.ics.uci.edu/ugrad/current/index.php BEFORE enrolling in the course again. However, meeting the prerequisites does not guarantee a space in the class. If you meet the course prerequisite by AP exam or transfer course credit, go to www.ics.uci.edu/ugrad/resources/index.php to sign up for prerequisite block clearing. Academic Counselors will clear students on a first come, first served basis.

Drop/Add Policy

• For the first two weeks of the quarter, all adds and drops will be handled automatically through the Registrar's WebReg system. After the second week of classes, adds and drops will only be allowed in extraordinary circumstances, and they must be processed by the Student Affairs Office. Paper add/drop cards no longer exist.
• Access UCI students only: If you are taking the course through the UCI Extension Access UCI program, different rules apply as they are still on a paper-based system. I can sign your form after the second class, which still gives you time to submit the form to UCI Extension and avoid paying the late fee.
• Class conflicts: I occasionally get requests that I permit a student to take the class even though the student is also taking another class that meets at the same time. If you are in this situation, please read the following.
  • If the conflict is with the lecture, I will not approve this.
  • If the conflict is with the discussion section, I will approve this provided the conflict is only with the discussion section and the instructor of the conflicting course also agrees to this. If you are in this situation, please send me email, and be sure to include the following information:
    1. The conflicting course;
    2. The name and email of the instructor of the conflicting course; and
    3. He name of the counselor with whom you are working.
    I don't let you into the course, I simply notify the counselor that I approve of your being enrolled in the course, and the counselor is the one who actually admits you into the course. So I need the third item in addition to the other two. Without it I cannot act on your request.
    
    Note:While I do allow you to take the course when you cannot attend the discussion section, I do not recommend it. The lectures present the material, the homework is where you apply it, and the discussion sections are where the homework solutions is discussed. Hence the discussion sections are an important part of this course. You are responsible for all material covered in the discussion section, whether you attend them or not. If you elect to take the course without attending the discussion sections and then complain that being unable to attend the discussion sections puts you at a disadvantage, you will not receive a sympathetic response from me, the TA, or the Reader.
• Missing Prerequisites: If you are not allowed to enroll, or are dropped from the course, because you are missing a prerequisite, there are three possible causes.
  1. An error was made. If you really have satisfied the prerequisite, contact the Student Affairs Office in your home school. If you can convince them that an error was made, they will authorize you to enroll in the course.
  2. You have not taken the prerequisite course. In this case, you need to take the prerequisite course to satisfy the prerequisite requirement. Under certain extraordinary circumstances I may be willing to consider approving a prerequisite waiver, but before doing so I will require you to
     1. Explain why the circumstances are extraordinary;and
     2. Take a written exam on the material in the prerequisite course.
     Note that approving a prerequsite waiver does not remove any major-specific requirement that you take the prerequisite course to graduate.
  3. Your grade in the prerequisite course C- or lower. In this case, you need to retake the course and earn a grade of C of higher to satisfy the prerequisite requirement. The grade of C- or lower in the prerequisite course demonstrates that your have not adequately mastered the prerequisite course material. I will not approve a prerequisite waiver in this case and I will not authorize a special prerequisite waiver exam in this case.
Drops: If you are going to drop the course, you have to drop before the end of the second week. Otherwise, you will need the Dean's signature, and there is no reason to assume you will be able to obtain it.

TextBook

• L. F. Bic and A. C. Shaw, Operating Systems Principles, Prentice Hall, 2003. This book is required, and it should be available at the UCI bookstore. The book web site has some additional information, including a list of errata.

Grading

• Homework: 10% (Weekly assignments, due on Tuesdays, to be submitted electronically. Lowest two will be dropped)
• Midterm 1: 23% (Friday, May 3)
• Midterm 2: 23% (Friday, May 31)
• Final: 44%

• You ask and receive my permission in advance; or
• There is an unforeseeable emergency (in which case I will ask for documentation.)

Regrade Policy

If you want your homework regraded, contact the Reader directly. Or you can send email to the questions list and the Reader will see it.

The regrade policy for midterms is here. Please note that there are deadlines for submitting regrade requests, and we will strictly adhere to them.

Homework Assignments

Some of the homework problems may be easy, but some are challenging and require a thorough understanding of the course material. If you wait until the last minute to start the homework, you do so at your own risk.

I will post homework for a chapter when we start covering the chapter in class. The TA will discuss the solutions in discussion section. Solutions to the homework will generally not be posted. So it is important that you attend discussion section if you want to see solutions to the homework problems.

The homework assignments are posted here.

Academic Dishonesty

• Copying from others during an examination, communicating exam answers with other students during an examination, or using unauthorized materials during an examination.
• Allowing another student to copy off your work during an examination.
• Tampering with an examination after it has been corrected, then returning it for more credit.
• Forging add/drop/change cards and other enrollment documents, or altering such a document after signatures have been obtained.
• Intentionally disrupting the educational process in any way.

Course Notes

• The slides as presented in class, and some additional material, are available here.
• Two older, similar sets of course notes are available at this link.
  1. A set of notes in Powerpoint developed by Dr. Steve Franklin of UCI.
  2. A set of notes in PDF format developed by Prof. Renato Parajola, formerly with UCI, now at the University of Zurich.
• You are responsible for all material from the lecture, discussions, and assigned book readings, even if it does not appear in the lecture notes.

Course Schedule and syllabus

• Week 1:
  • Introduction. Processes. Defining and initiating processes. Process interactions, critical sections.
  • Reading assignment: [1, 2.1-2.3].
• Week 2:
  • Synchronization: semaphores, event synchronization, monitors, protected types, classic synchronization problems.
  • Reading assignment: [2.4-2.5; 3].
• Week 3:
  • Operating system kernel. Implementing processes and threads. Implementing synchronization and communication mechanisms. Interrupt handling.
  • Reading assignment: [4].
• Week 4:
  • Process and thread scheduling: organization of schedulers; scheduling methods; priority inversion. Deadlocks, deadlock detection.
  • Reading assignment: [5; 6.1-6.3].
• Week 5:
  • Deadlock recovery, deadlock avoidance strategies, deadlock prevention strategy.
  • Reading assignment: [6.4-6.6].
• Week 6:
  • Physical memory. Preparing a program for execution. Memory partitioning schemes. Memory allocation strategies. Memory compaction strategies. Virtual memory. Paging, segmentation.
  • Reading assignment: [7; 8.1-8.2].
• Week 7:
  • Page allocation strategies. Code sharing, data sharing. Distributed shared memory.
  • Reading assignment: [8.3-8.5; 9].
• Week 8:
  • File systems: user view; directories; device organization; distributed file systems.
  • Reading assignment: [10].
• Week 9:
  • Input/Output systems: devices, device drivers, device management.
  • Reading assignment: [11].
• Week 10:
  • Protection and Security: security threats; functions of a protection system; user authentication; secure communication; access control mechanisms.
  • Reading assignment: [12-13].