Announcements

• Dec 15: Examples sheet 5 is now available
• Dec 15: Answers to examples sheet 5 are available here (.doc file).
• Dec 15: Examples sheet 4 is now available
• Dec 15: Answers to examples sheet 4 are available here (.doc file).
• Dec 15: Examples sheet 3 is now available
• Dec 2: Answers to the third examples class are available here (.doc file).
• Oct 28: Answers to the second examples class are available here (.doc file).
• Oct 28: Answers to the first examples class are available here (.doc file).
• Oct 28: Examples sheet 2 is now available
• Oct 12: This web page was set up - some of the links to pdf files don't work at the moment!
• Oct 7: Examples sheet 1 is now available
• Sep 28: First Lecture!

Schedule

• Schedule: [pdf]
• Lectures (1.1): Wednesdays 9-10am; Fridays 4-5pm
• Labs (Dual Boot Lab, LF39/35/34):
  • Group F (alt.Fridays 09:00-11:00; supervised by CK/GE): 10/10,24/10,14/11,28/11,12/12
  • Group G (alt.Tuesdays 13:00-15:00; supervised by CCK): 07/10,21/10,11/11,25/11,09/12
  • Group H (alt.Thursdays 09:00-11:00; supervised by RIS): 09/10,23/10,13/11,27/11,11/12
  • Additional marking sessions will take place the first week of the 2nd term.
• Examples Classes (all in LF15):
  • Group F (alt.Thursdays 10:00-11:00; supervised by RIS): 13/10, 27/10, 17/11, 01/12, 15/12.
  • Group G (alt.Fridays 09:00-10:00; supervised by CCK): 14/10, 28/10, 18/11, 02/12, 16/12.
  • Group H (alt.Tuesdays 14:00-15:00; supervised by JDG): 11/10, 25/10, 15/11, 29/11, 13/12.

Course Book

Your are advised to get hold of a copy of one of the following:

• Operating System Concepts with Java (6th edition) (shorthand OSCJ), by Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Galvin, Greg Gagne. Check this link for further information by the authors. References will also be provided to an earlier version of this book, with the title Applied Operating System Concepts (1st edition) (AOSC), by the same authors. Check this link for further information by the authors.
• Modern Operating Systems (2nd edition) (MOS), by Andrew S. Tanenbaum (Prentice-Hall). Check this link for further material related to this book added by its author.

Other recommended books:

• Operating System Concepts, by Silberschatz et al ( Info by the authors). This seems to be the newest edition in the series. You may find that the 6th edition has many similarities with OSCJ.
• Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, by Tanenbaum.
• Operating Systems: internals and design principles, by Stallings (Info by the author).
• Operating Systems (3rd edition), by Gary Nutt. (Info by the author).
• Operating Systems Principles, by Bic and Shaw.

Handouts

(Accessible from Computer Science machines only)

• Lecture 01 (Introduction to Operating Systems) (RIS): [powerpoint], [pdf] [AOSC/OSCJ, Chapter 1; MOS, Chapter 1 up to 1.3, pp. 1-20]
• Lecture 02 (Operating System Concepts) (RIS): [powerpoint], [pdf] [AOSC, Sections 2.5, 2.6, 3.1-3.6 (skim through the rest of Chapters 2 and 3); MOS, Sections 1.5-1.11 (skim through the system call details)]
• Lecture 03 (The Process Manager: Processes) (RIS): [powerpoint], [pdf] [AOSC, Sections 4.1, 4.2.3, 4.3, 4.6, 5.1-5.3 (skim through the rest of 4.2); OSCJ, Sections 4.1, 4.2.3, 4.3, 4.7, 5.1; MOS, Sections 2.1-2.2.4]
• Lecture 04 (Threads & An Introduction to Process and Thread Scheduling) (RIS): [powerpoint], [pdf] [AOSC/OSCJ, Sections 6.1-6.3.2; MOS, Section 2.5 up to page 140 (incl.)]
• Lecture 05 (Process Scheduling Algorithms) (RIS): [powerpoint], [pdf] [AOSC, Sections 6.3.3-6.3.6, 6.9 (skim through 6.5-6.8); OSCJ, Sections 6.3.3-6.3.6, 6.10 (skim through 6.5-6.8) MOS, Section 2.5.3 up to page 146, 2.7 (skim through 2.5.4)] Also, some words of advice about the lab were given - check this for the powerpoint file used.
• Lecture 6
• Lecture 7
• Lecture 08 (Threads in Java)(CCK):[powerpoint], [pdf][OSC Sections 5.7 and 6.8; Java documentation]
• Lecture 09 (Memory Management I)(CCK):[powerpoint],[pdf] [OSC Sections 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3; MOS sections 4.1 and 4.2]
• Lecture 10 (Memory Management II)(CCK)[powerpoint],[pdf] [MOS: Section 4.8; OSC Section 9.5]
• Lecture 11 (Memory Management II)(CCK)[powerpoint],[pdf] [MOS: Sections 4.3 & 4.4; OSC Section 9.4 & 10.4]
• Lecture 12 (Memory Management II)(CCK)[powerpoint],[pdf] [MOS: Sections 4.3 & 4.8; OSC Section 9.4 & 9.6]
• Lecture 13 (powerpoint only)
• Lecture 14 (powerpoint only)
• Lecture 15 (File Manager I)(CCK)[powerpoint],[pdf] [MOS: Sections 6.1 & 6.2; OSC Sections 11.1-11.3]
• Lecture 16 (File Manager II)(CCK)[powerpoint],[pdf] [MOS: Section 6.3; OSC Section 12.1-12.5]
• Lecture 17 (File Manager III)(CCK)[powerpoint],[pdf] [MOS: Section 6.3; OSC Section 12.5-12.7]
• Lecture 18 (MS Windows Case Study)(RIS)[powerpoint],[pdf] []
• Lecture 17 (Unix Case Study)(CCK)[powerpoint],[pdf] [MOS: Chapter 10; OSC Appendix A]

Resources on the web

• Info by William Stallings, the author of "Operating Systems: internals and design principles"
• CS140 OS Hacking from Stanford; you may want to check the lecture notes but note this is a 1st year course.
• CS537 Introduction to Operating Systems from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
• A set of lecture notes for a first course in operating systems (from MIT)
• CS377 Operating Systems from U.Mass at Amherst (note this is a 3rd year course)
• A 4th year Operating Systems course (Columbia Un.)
• A 3rd year course from the University of Nottingham
• A 4th year course at the University of Maryland

• Linux enthusiasts may be interested in this book on the Linux Kernel. Good to see how the concepts introduced in the course apply to a real-world Operating System!
• What is real-time computing? Check this well-written personal manifesto; this list of FAQs from the newsgroup comp.realtime has pointers to interesting material.
• A demo of the Dining Philosophers problem - another one from Sun

Exam Papers from past years

(NB: The style of the exam has changed in recent years - papers before 2001 are not relevant now)

• January 2005
• January 2004
• January 2003
• January 2002
• January 2001
• January 2000
• January 1999

CS2051 material from previous years

• 2004-05 (C.C.Kirkham, R.I.Sakellariou)
• 2003-04 (C.C.Kirkham, R.I.Sakellariou)
• 2002-03 (J.R.Gurd, C.C.Kirkham)
• 2001-02 (R.I.Sakellariou)
• 2000-01 (J.R.Gurd) and earlier (A.Rawsthorne)

Staff

• Course Organisers: Chris Kirkham, Rizos Sakellariou
• TAs: GE, KN, NW
• Lab demonstrators: MH, PV, AT (G/F only), CT (F/H only); LL (H only), MJ (G only).