Announcements

The midterm Exam

Logistics: The midterm exam will be during class time on Thursday, 3/6/2025. You may bring one double-sided sheet of 8.5x11 paper as a "cheat sheet".

Coverage: The exam will cover all material covered in lectures linked from the schedule, and all chapters listed on the schedule. Note that this does not include Chapter 10, the one about multiple processors.

Practice: We have released a practice test. We will also hold a review session in COS 105 on Wednesday night

Persistent Announcements

• Monday: P Wang: 11am-1pm on Monday, Friend 010
• Tuesday: A Zhou: 1:30-3:30pm, Friend 010
• Wednesday:
  • Mae: 2:30-4:30pm 194 Nassau 231
  • A Zhang 4:30-6:30pm CS 301
• Thursday: Amit 1:45-3:45pm (https://zoom.us/my/alevy)

• We have now activated an Ed Instance For this class! Ask any questions you'd like on it. The TAs and Professors can see all questions.
• Thursday at 6pm will be the general due date for assignments going forwards.
• You can upload assignments on TigerFile; the assignment descriptions and support files are on courselab in the directory /u/cos417/assignments/

COS 417: Operating Systems

Course Staff:

Profs: Mae Milano and Amit Levy

TAs: A Zhou, A Zhang, P Wang

Course Description:

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the principles and practice of operating systems. We will cover topics such as processes, virtualization, memory management, concurrency, and I/O. The course will emphasize both theoretical foundations and practical implementation.

Course Objectives:

• Understand the fundamental concepts of operating systems

• Gain experience in designing and implementing operating systems components

• Develop skills in analyzing and evaluating operating systems performance

• Appreciate the role of operating systems in modern computing environments

Textbook:

Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces by Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau

Grading:

Homework (10%) Programming Assignments (40%) Midterm Exam (25%) Final Exam (25%)

Late Policy:

Summary: you have 3 late days; default penalty is 10% per day (after late days are applied).

Detail:

By default, each day (24-hour period) an assignment is late will incur a 10% late penalty. Late penalties are not pro-rated; an assignment submitted n*24 + m (where 0 < m < 24) hours late will receive n+1 days of penalty.

Up to three assignments may be submitted up to 24-hours late without penalty, via our “late day” policy.

Late day policy: Each student is allocated three “late days.” Each “late day” grants the ability to submit an assignment 24 hours late, without late penalty. The course staff will optimally allocate late days at the end of the semester, to minimize late penalties incurred on all assignments.

Course Schedule:

Academic Integrity:

Academic integrity is taken very seriously by COS 417; a detailed policy, including references to chatGPT, is forthcoming

Disclaimer:

This syllabus is subject to change at the discretion of the instructor. Any modifications will be announced in class and posted on the course website.