OS 1st Class of 2011

On January 7, 2011, we will proceed to Chapter 4, "File Systems." We will try to cover first three sections, "Files", "Directories" and "File System Implementation." These sections are your reading assignments.

We will only have three weeks left in this semester. One of the class may be rescheduled due to a business trip of the instructor. Update will be posted here as well as in the class, which is coming tomorrow night at 2359.

Do not forget the submission deadline of Exercise 10 and the report for Dr. Pedroso's special lecture.

Finally, happy holidays.

Report for Today's Lecture

1. Name your report as tsp.pdf.
2. Use /home/course/os10f6/Ex/tsp-submission (/home/course/os10f6/Ex/tsp-test for submission test)
3. Deadline is the same as Exercise 10 (2259 of Dec 22)

Today's Exercise

Due to Dr. Pedroso's talk, today's exercise problems have an extended deadline. Because of this, you will work outside class hours and there may be a situation where corrections or clarifications are needed on the problems. Please pay attention to this board and email as such update will be either posted here or sent to you by email.

Tentative Final Exam Schedule

According to the tentative final exam schedule from the Student Affairs Division (internal access only), the final exam for the Oprating Systems class will take place on the 4th period of January 27 (Th).

Dr Pedroso's Lecture

All the students in the Operating Systems course are required to attend Dr Pedroso's lecture and work on the problems he will present. Students satisfying these requirement, together with asking a question to him (this can be either about the lecture, University of Porto, or Portugal) will receive extra credits (bonus points) toward his/her course grade.

Plans for this week OS class

This week, we will finish the rests of Chapter 3. To do so, we may need to extend the lecture, running into some of the 4th period.

In the 5th period, we will have a special speaker Dr João Pedro Pedroso. The title of this talk is "An introduction to the Traveling Salesman Problem" and abstract is as follows.

Abstract: One of the most widely studied problems in discrete optimization is the Traveling Salesman Problem. In this talk we will make an introduction to this problem and to strategies that can be used for solving it. We will also present some variants, focusing on applications in subjects related to computer science.

OS Exercise 9 posted

oday's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

Preparation and Review

Some (if not all) students consider that the time for working on the exercise problems is not enough. This may be true and may not be true. Before coming to the class on Friday, do you prepare for the lecture by reading (and finding the points you don't understand) the textbook ?

Also, have you reviewed what you have learned in the lecture of the last week ? The exercise problems are mostly based on the materials taught last week. If you haven't reviewed them, it takes you some time to remember what you studied, (and waste time). When you have remembered what you did a week ago, the time is up.

Another point, some of the students seem to have spent 'easy time' in programming courses last year. If you think so, you definitely need to study the basics of programming again using the course materials used last year.

When you have submitted incomplete exercise, you have to work to completion FOR YOURSELF (meaning, even though it doesn't give you any points for the exercise). Some students are not doing so and that looks to be the reason why they still do not understand how to use sscanf().

Course Prerequisite Charts

Here are sample prerequisite course charts from other schools. Please take a look and find where operating systems courses are placed.

• Michigan Technological University
• Brigham Young University
• San Jose State University
• The Pennsylvania State University
• University of MInnesota

OS next week

Next week, we will cover Section 3.4 "Page Replacement Algorithms" and proceed toward the end of Chapter 3 as far as time allows. These sections are your reading assignments.

OS Exercise 8 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

OS next week

Next week, we will cover Section 3.3 "Virtual Memory" and proceed to Section 3.4 "Page Replacement Algorithms" if time allows. These sections are your reading assignments.

OS Exercise Today

As announced in the class, we will work on the Exercise 7 again this week. Please use the problem posted at the Exercise page.

1. After having read the input, your program must construct two arrays, R and P. Each element of R stands for resource assignment; for example R[0] = 0 stands for it is assigned to Process 0. P stands for resource requests from processes. For example P[0] = 0 means Process 0 is requesting Resource a (it is assumed that arrays are of integer types, to make indexing easier).
2. Your program has to detect all circles.
3. Submission deadline is midnight (2359).

Office Hours Today

I may be out of office intermittently after 3pm. If you planned to visit my office between 3pm and 4pm, let me advise you to contact me by email for appointment. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Operating Systems this week

This week, we will proceed to Chapter 3 "MEMORY MANAGEMENT" and should cover up to Section 3.3 "Virtual Memory." These sections are your reading assignments.

OS Exercise 7 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

This Friday's Schedule

On Friday this week, we will have the mid-term exam on the 3rd period and then proceed to the exercise for the next two periods (as usual).

Please read carefully the Examination Policies and Rules again. Please also note that if you have missed four or more exercise submissions, you are ineligible for the mid-term exam (exercise graded less than 0.5 point is not considered to be "submitted").

OS schedule of the next week

The next week, we will have midterm exam. We may rearrange the order of the exam and exercise and/or lecture during the three class periods. The final schedule will be posted (at latest) by the end of Wednesday next week. The lecture (if it takes place) should cover up to Section 3.3 "Virtual Memory" and these sections are your reading assignments.

OS Exercise 6 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

Graduation Thesis Topics Slides

The slides for Graduation Thesis Topics are posted.

OS Next Week & Midterm Exam

Next week, we will proceed to Chapter 6 "Deadlocks." According to the syllabus and also as announced in the class, the midterm exam will be on the week after next (Nov 19).

OS Exercise 5 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

OS This week

This week, we will cover the rest of Chapter 2, with emphasis on the Section 2.4 "Scheduling.". After Chapter 2, we will proceed to Chapter 6. We will study Chapters 3 to 5 after the mid term exam.

OS Exercise 4 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

OS Next Week

Next week, we will cover Section 2.3 "Interprocess Communication" (more precisely, from Section 2.3.2 "Critical Regions" since we already covered Section 2.3.1 "Race Conditions" last Friday). This section is your reading assignment.

OS Exercise 3 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page. Please remember that the deadline is 1800 today and no late submissions are accepted.

Your Course ID for Operating Systems

If you are taking my Operating Systems course, you must have received email titled "Operating Systems ID" in which a number is written (and nothing else). We are going to use this number for posting your Exercise grades. If you are taking the Operating Systems course but did not receive the email, first check your spam folder. If you are confident that the message was not filtered as spam, please contact the instructor.

OS Next Week

Next week, we will cover Section 2.2 "Threads." This section is your reading assignment.

We understand that some students tried hard, but could not finish today's exercise problem. While the deadline is not extended, it is still worth trying to finish it for yourself as about half of the exercise problems will be programming (in C). There *may* be chances of extra credit in the future.

Some (or most ?) of students need to review the materials of the courses in the last year (such as Introduction to Computer Systems, or C programming).

OS Exercise 2 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

No OS class this week

According to the campus calendar, we have no class Friday this week (10/8).

On the week after next (10/15), we will cover Section 2.1 "Processes" and possibly proceed to Section 2.2 "Threads" if time allows. These two sections are your reading assignments.

OS Exercise 1 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

Update on Operating Systems Course

• Sho Niboshi has been appointed as the Teaching Assistant of the Operating Systems course.
• Some update of the syllabus.
• Exercise page has been created (links to Exercise 1 problems are not valid yet. Files will be uploaded tomorrow).

Update on Operating Systems Page

Operating Systems page has been updated and (tentative) Syllabus has been added.

Advanced Computer Architecture Page Created

Home page for Advanced Computer Architecture , which will be offered this fall, has been created.

The course is project-oriented and students must discuss with the instructor on their choice of project topic in advance.

Operating Systems Home Page Created

Home page for Operating Systems , which will be offered this fall, has been created.

OS10 Textbook

We will use the following textbook for the C3 section of the Operating Systems course for this year: Modern Operating Systems, Inernational Edition, 3/E*, by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, ISBN-10: 0138134596, ISBN-13:9780138134594, Prentice Hall.

Please order your copy as soon as possible at the Campus Bookstore: it is your responsibility to have your own copy of the textbook on the first day of the class. You have to understand that not having your textbook is a significant disadvantage for taking the course which is likely to result in failing the course.

Exam Rules and Policies

The final exam of the Operating Systems is approaching. Please read the Exam Rules and Policies again taking the exam.

Office Hour Schedule

For the rest of the 2nd semester, the office hour schedule is changed to "by appointment only." Just send me email for appointment.

OS Homework 2 posted

The problem for Homework 2 has been posted at the Exercise Page . The submission deadline is February 2, at 12 noon.

Correction: Jan 26 is Tuesday

In this article, Jan 26 was written as Wednesday but please read it as "Jan 26 (Tue)."

Classroom on Jan 26 (Wed)

On Jan 26 (Wed), we will meet at M1 (Lecture Hall 201), rather than the lab hdw1. We will cover the rest of Chapter 5 with emphasis on Section 5.4 "Disk" (and Sections 5.8 if time allows).

Exercise 14 posted

The problems for today's exercise are posted at the Exercise Page.

OS This Week

As announced previously here (Jan 5) and also in the class last week, we will proceed to Chapter 5 "Input/Output" from this week.

Exercise 13 posted

The problems for the Exercise 13 are posted at the Exercise Page .

As announced in the class last week, Exercise 13 is a take-home exercise and you must submit it by 13 of January 21. There maybe some revisions on the problems later. However, they are limited to minor corrections such as typos. If such changes are made, they will be announced here.

Final Exam on Feb 3, 4th Period

According to the final exam time table from the Student Affairs Division , the final exam of our class is on the 4th priod of Feb 3.

No Class on Friday

According to the Academic Calendar ( English, Japanese), there won't be classes on Friday this week. Make-up classes will be on Jan 26 (Tuesday).

Office Hours

If you plan to visit my office today, please send me email in advance. Thank you.

OS Next Week

Next week, we will finish Chapter 4 (Sections 4.4 to the end).

OS Exercise 12 posted

Today's exercise problems are posted at the Exercise Page.

OS Course Schedule

As known from the homework problems given on Dec 18 last year, we will start Chapter 4 "File Systems" this week. It is anticipated that we will study first three sections this week. Next week, we plan to finish Chapter 4.

According to the Academic Calendar, the class schedule of Jan 26 will be replaced with that of Friday. We will cover Chapter 5 "Input/Output" in the classes of the last two weeks (Jan 21, 22 and 26).