CSCC69 Operating systems
Principles of operating systems. The operating system as a control program and as a resource allocator. The concept of a process and concurrency problem: synchronization, mutual exclusion, deadlock. Additional topics include memory management, file systems, process scheduling, threads, and protection.
Prerequisite
This course requires a good understanding of the x86 computer architecture (CSCB58), good C/UNIX system programming skills (CSCB09), and good coding practices (CSCB07).
Course Staff
We encourage you to post questions regarding course materials and projects on Piazza. However, if you need extended support, the course staff will hold office hours.
Course Timing
Course Information
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The course website and its Github repository
One of the nice things about using Github for the course website is that you can contribute to the course website. If you see something on the course website that should be fixed, or want to improve the UI, please feel free to submit a pull request.
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The discussion board is the best place to ask technical questions, and general questions about the course, projects and labs. For personal issues, please use private posts. I try to respond by the end of the next day. However, due to volume, it may take longer, especially on weekends.
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If you have feedback about the course, you can send an anonymous feedback to the course instructor (you also have the option of including your name). Since the sender cannot be determined, comments sent through the feedback form are considered public, and they may receive a response at the beginning of class or on the discussion board.
Marking Scheme
The numeric marks of the projects and final exam will be used to compute a composite numeric score that will determine your final letter grade for the course. The weighting of course work is set as:
A mark of at least 50% on the final exam is required to pass the course. If you receive less than 50% on the final exam, your overall course grade will be capped at 49.
Submission and Grading Policy
For each project, the student or the team will be required to submit the code to the Github repository through Github classroom. Only the final commit subnitted to Gradescope will be graded.
The instructor reserves the right to assign different grades to each of the team members based on their individual contributions made to Github repository.
For your work to be graded, it must meet the minimum standards of a professional computer scientist. All files required to build the program must be committed to the repository, and the program must work. Last minute difficulties with git can easily be avoided by ensuring all files are added to the repository well before the deadline, and that you know how to commit them. Your submission may receive a grade of 0, if the code does not compile or does not execute properly.
Each team will have 4 late days which may be spent in units of one day and that can spread into 4 projects. Beyond those grace days, no late submissions will be accepted for any course work, and no make-up assignments will be provided for missed/poorly completed work. It is your responsibility to ensure that all work is completed on time and to the best of your ability.
If an emergency arises that prevents you from being able to complete any piece of work, or attend an exam, contact the instructor immediately.
If a piece of work has been mis-marked or if you believe the rubric used to evaluate the work is not appropriate, you may request a re-mark. For a re-mark to succeed, you must clearly and concisely express what you believe was mis-marked. To request a re-mark, please contact your TA. Requests must be submitted within 1 week of the marks being returned.
Academic Integrity
You are expected to comply with the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters.
Assignment solutions must be prepared individually, except where an assignment handout allows working with a partner. Note that working with a partner may be restricted to just part of an assignment, such as programming task, whereas the rest of the assignment must be solved by an individual.
You are fully responsible for the piece of work you submit to Github repository as your contribution to the project.
When the assignment handout allows you to use snippets of code from the web, you should cite the source in the source code. As a rule of thumb, any piece of code larger than 5 lines that has been copied and re-used as is or even slightly modified must be clearly referenced. However, any piece of code larger than 25 lines should not be re-used.
You may discuss projects with other students, for example to clarify the requirements of an project, to work through examples that help you understand the technology used for an project, or to learn how to configure your system to run a supporting piece of software used in an project. However, collaboration at the level of answering written questions or designing and writing code, is strictly forbidden. Written problems and programming projects must be answered, designed and coded by you alone, using the text, your own notes, and other texts and Web sources as aids.
Do not let other students look at your project solutions, since this can lead to copying. Remember you are in violation of the UTSC Academic Code whether you copy someone else’s work or allow someone else to copy your work. These rules are meant to ensure that all students understand their solutions well enough to prepare the solutions themselves. If challenged you must be able to reproduce and explain your work.
You are not allowed to look at solutions available online and you are not allowed to make your solution publicly available online as well, even after the class term.
You are not allowed to ask for help outside of the course Piazza. Asking for help anywhere else online or in private chat groups (unless the private group chat was setup between the group members of the group project) will be considered as unauthorized help.
The course staff reserves the right to use code and text analysis tools to compare your submission with others (including past/present submissions and others available online) to verify that no improper behavior has occurred.
Failure to comply with these guidelines is a serious academic offence. In past academic offense cases, the Associate Dean has imposed penalties for code violations that range from a mark of zero on plagiarized projects to academic suspension from the University.
Accessibility Needs
The University of Toronto is committed to accessibility. If you require accommodations for a disability, or have any accessibility concerns about the course, the classroom or course materials, please contact Accessibility Services as soon as possible: https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/ability/welcome-accessability-services
Acknowledgments
The course syllabus, lecture and project materials are heavily influenced by Stanford CS 140 and John Hopkins University CS 318. I would like to thank Ben Pfaff (Stanford and VMware Research), David Mazières (Stanford) and Ryan Huang (John Hopkins University) for giving me access to their materials.