Reference in the course directory.

Lectures: Albert Cohen.

Labs: Guillaume Quintin and Albert Cohen.

Overview

This course introduces the principles and design of modern operating systems (internal view) as well as operating system programming interfaces (external view). The course covers topics in concurrency, resource abstraction and virtualization, and their translation into operating system components (processes, memory management, file systems, communication). We will deconstruct the links between the low level components of the kernel and higher level services, considering key notions in concurrency, modularity and protection. We will also learn how to write programs that interact with operating systems. The course will conclude with introductory presentations about active research and innovation areas in virtual machines and mobile embedded systems.

• Main textbooks and documentation.
  • A. Silberschatz and P. Galvin. Operating System Concepts. Eight Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2008 (you may download a few online chapters). The Seventh Edition is still very relevant, and comes with a more applied Java-oriented book (algorithm examples in Java, not Java system API).
  • D. P. Bovet and M. Cesati. Understanding the Linux Kernel. Third Edition, O'Reilly, 2005. (Requires an advanced level in the C programming language.)
  • C. Blaess. Programmation Système en C sous Linux. Third Edition, Eyrolles, 2005. (In French.)
  • C. Blaess. Shells Linux et UNIX par la pratique. Eyrolles, 2008. (In French.) Online resources: UNIX quick reference: Bourne shell, UNIX commands;
  • M. Mitchell, J. Oldham, and A. Samuel. Advanced Linux Programming, by CodeSourcery LLC (now Mentor Graphics), published by New Riders Publishing under a free license, 2001. Also partly available in French (translation in progress).

Course Material

• The slides are in English and present the main concepts and design issues about modern operating systems, with an emphasis on the POSIX programming interface and the Linux kernel. Reference information can be found in the GNU/Linux "man pages" (introduced in the first lab). The following documents are in French; they will be distributed at the first course.
  • technical annex;
  • C quick reference (make sure you print it two-sided);
  • an excellent and complete introduction to C
    (the ANSI and ISO C90 standards are identical; the ISO C99 standard is the latest one and does not present significant differences for the purpose of this course).
• Slides:
  • handouts (all slides).
  • introduction.
  • chapter 1.
  • chapter 2.
  • chapter 3.
  • chapter 4.
  • chapter 5.
  • chapter 6.
  • chapter 7.
  • chapter 8 and the Peterson algorithm example with processes and shared memory or threads (presented in the following chapter).
  • chapter 9.
  • chapter 10.
  • chapter 11.
  • chapter 12.

Term Exam

No term exam in 2012. Instead, two labs will be completed with graded home assignments. An oral test will be based on these labs, and it will be completed with additional questions. The students are encouraged to work in pairs for the home work, but the oral examination is individual. The duration of the oral test is 30mn. The grade evaluates evenly the home assignments and oral test.

Past exams.
Note: the course had a slightly different contents before 2009, focusing more on system programming.

• 2010–2011: exam in English, et en français français.
• 2009–2010: exam.
• 2008–2009: exam.
• 2007–2008: exam.
• 2006–2007: exam.

Labs and Project

The labs are in French for now. Based on student feedback, we will consider translating them to English.

Les sujets de TDs.

Aide en ligne (synthétique et imprimable) de Christophe Blaess:

• UNIX commands.
• Shell programming.
• Linux administration.

• The UNIX genealogy poster, spreading over 21 A4 pages!
• The course until 2006 (in French, by Didier Rémy), to discover operating systems from a high-level language point of view (OCaml).