Contents

Lectures

Course Tutors

General Information

• Textbook - Operating System Concepts 6th Edition. Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne. John Wiley and Sons, 2002.
  • The textbook being sold in the UW Bookstore is the "Windows XP Update" of the 6th edition. It does not matter whether you have the Windows XP Update of the 6th edition or the original 6th edition. Apparently, the only difference between the two is a new appendix that is included in the XP Update version.
  • Book's authors' web page, including errata (PDF)
• Lecture Notes - see below.
• Course Email - cs350@student.cs.uwaterloo.ca
• Course Newsgroup - uw.cs.cs350
  Read the newsgroup regularly. The web page contains on-line copies of the course handouts, readings, assignments and other related resources.
• Homepage - http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs350/F04
• Handbook Description
• Calendar Description
• Evaluation:
  • Assignments: 35% (10/15/10)
  • Midterm Exam: 20%
  • Final Exam: 45%
  To obtain a passing mark in the course, the weighted average of the two exams must be at least 50%. Otherwise the weighted average of the two exams is used for the final grade.

Exams

As the examinations near, more information will be posted here.

• Final Exam
  • Go here for location and time: https://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs-marks/db/
• Midterm Exam
  • Main sitting: 1900-2100, Thursday, 28 Oct 2004
  • Alternative sitting: Contact Tutors
  • Testable material includes everything covered in lectures up to and including "Processor Scheduling".
• Exam-related Study Documents
  • CS354 W03 midterm with model solutions (PDF, PS)
  • Old CS354 study questions (PDF, PS)
  • Model solutions for old CS354 study questions (PDF, PS)

    Note: the old CS354 study questions really are old. The course has evolved since they were written. Some questions may test material that is no longer covered in CS350.

NOTE: In addition to materials from class; the text; and course readings, exam questions will also include Nachos specific questions. Group members are responsible for ensuring that they understand all aspects of Nachos, including those portions implemented by other group members.

Assignments

Course assignments are based on Nachos. Nachos consists of an simulator for a MIPS-based workstation plus a rudimentary operating system for that workstation, implemented in over 10,000 lines of C++. Nachos comes originally from UC Berkeley and has been modified for use at Waterloo.

Assignments may be done individually or in groups of 2 or 3 (groups of 3 is recommended). If you want a partner but do not have one, post to and/or read the course newsgroup to find one. Assignment 0 is to register your group.

On a related note, it is possible that a group may desire to break-up for a number of reasons. There are policies for such a situation. Make sure you know them.

Code for the assignments must be submitted electronically; documentation is to be prepared using a text formatter and good-quality printer and must be handed in as printed output. Your design documentation MUST use the marking guide as the cover page. See the general assignment information handout for more information.

Discussing assignments with other students is allowed, even encouraged, but work handed in must be that of the individual or group. The standard penalty for copying an assignment or allowing an assignment to be copied is a mark of -100% for that assignment.

Do not leave assignments until the last week. Start early!
Remember: late assignments receive a grade of 0%.

Assignment 0

• Due: 1200, Wednesday, 22 Sept 2004
• Assignment 0 is to organize and register your project group. To do so, you should follow the instructions in the Forming Groups document.

Assignment 1

• Due date: 1200, Friday, 15 Oct 2004
• General Assignment Information - The information in this document applies to all of the assignments.
• Assignment 1 Description (PDF)
• Assignment 1 Marking Guide/Cover Sheet (PDF)

Assignment 2

• Due date: 1200, Friday, 12 Nov 2004
• Assignment 2 Description (PDF)
• Assignment 2 Marking Guide/Cover Sheet (PDF)

Assignment 3

• Due date: 1200, Monday, 06 Dec 2004
• Assignment 3 Description (PDF)
• Assignment 3 Marking Guide/Cover Sheet (PDF)

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Nachos and Related Information

Installing Nachos

How to get started by installing Nachos in your account.

Nachos Operating System Overview

A quick tour through the operating system for the simulated workstation.

Nachos Workstation Overview

A quick tour through the simulated workstation.

Working in Groups

Some information about working in groups in CSCF's Unix environment. This includes information about file access control, and some suggestions for sharing Nachos files among the members of a group.

Unix File Permissions

Find out what various file permissions mean and how to manipulate them.

Debugging Nachos

A tour through Nachos' built-in debugging facilities, and how to get started running Nachos under GDB.

Cyclic Include Files

There are dependancies among the header files used in Nachos. Adding one #include can make your code not compile. Find out more.

Running Nachos on Linux

Some information for those who would like to run Nachos at home on a Linux PC.

Nachos Tutorial Slides

PDF version of the slides used in the Nachos tutorial

Non-UW Nachos Material

Nachos Overview Paper

This is a paper about Nachos by the authors of Nachos. It describes the ideas behind Nachos and discusses the assignments as they once existed. The assignments currently being used at Waterloo are different from the ones described in this paper.

Overview of MIPS registers

A description of all the MIPS registers and a mapping between the numeric and symbolic names for them.

Road Map Through Nachos by Thomas Narten

This is a more detailed overview of Nachos, written by Thomas Narten. Previous classes have found it useful. However, you should be aware of several things before reading this. First, it describes an older version of Nachos than the one installed at UW. The descriptions are still mostly relevant, but there have been some changes. Second, the UW versions of the Nachos projects differ from others, including Narten's. Don't take assignment-specific comments too literally. A Postscript version of the Road Map is also available, perhaps unofficially.

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Reappraisals

• Assignments
  1. Contact the TA who marked your assignment (a list will be posted to the newsgroup and/or announcement page for each assignment).
     Your TA will be able to help explain the marking, and, if needed, make small adjustments to the mark.
  2. If you are not satisfied after talking with your TA, fill out a reappraisal form and follow the procedure listed below for exams.
• Examinations
  1. If you have an exam that you would like to have reappraised you must use the form provided below. Print this form, fill it out, staple it to the exam in question and hand that in to a tutor or instructor. The entire exam will be reevaluated and your grade may be raised or lowered. Please look at the grading, remember that it's not an exact science/art and that while you may have deserved a few marks more on one question you may have been given more marks than you deserve on another question. Also please think about whether your final grade will actually be modified if the grade on an individual piece of work is changed.

Note that requests for reappraisal will not be accepted on the same day that work is returned. Unless otherwise specified, you have two weeks from the date that the work was returned to file a request.

Request for Reappraisal Form

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Lecture Notes

Lecture notes are available for purchase at Pixel Planet (MC2018).

Topic	1-up Slides		2-up Slides
Introduction	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Processes	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Synchronization	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Memory Management	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Nachos	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Virtual Memory	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Scheduling	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
I/O	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
File Systems	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Interprocess Communication and Networking	PDF	PS	PDF	PS
Security	PDF	PS	PDF	PS

Suplemental material in the form of additional slides on some topics can be found here:

• Interprocess Communication
• Security Notes

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Reading List

The following readings are from the course textbook.

Background and Overview

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3

Processes and Threads

• Chapter 4, Sections 4.1-4.3
• Chapter 5

Memory Management

• Chapter 9

Concurrency and Synchronization

• Chapter 4, Section 4.4
• Chapter 7, except Section 7.9
• Chapter 8

Virtual Memory

• Chapter 10

Processor Scheduling

• Chapter 6

I/O

• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14, except Section 14.7

File Systems

• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12, except Section 12.9

Interprocess Communication and Networking

• Chapter 4, Sections 4.5-4.6

Security

• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19

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Visual support

Visual CS 350

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Useful Links

Programming and Source Code Control Tools

• CVS Information (source control system)
• GDB Online Documentation from www.gnu.org

Miscellaneous

• Operating System Resource Center

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Last Modified: 02 September 2004
(CS350 Web master cs350@student.cs.uwaterloo.ca)