CS 161: Operating Systems (2015)

Tuesday/Thursday 1:00-2:30

Pierce 301

Professor	Teaching Fellows
Margo Seltzer	David Holland: dholland@eecs.harvard.edu
Maxwell Dworkin 241	Office Hours: Thu 6-8pm (MD213 or 2nd floor lounge) and by arrangement
margo@eecs.harvard.edu	Anne Madoff: annemadoff@college.harvard.edu
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/margo	Office Hours: Monday 8-10pm, Leverett Dining Hall
617-496-5663	Keno Fischer: kfischer@college.harvard.edu
Office hours: Monday 1:00-3:00	Office Hours: Saturday 2:00-4:00, Currier Dining Hall (or email me)
Sections	Ross Rheingans-Yoo: rheingansyoo@college.harvard.edu
Tuesday 2:30-4:00pm, Pierce 301	Office Hours: Thursday 2:30 - 4:30 (MD 1st floor lobby)
Wednesday 7:00-8:30pm, MD319	Usually staffed: CS Hub 8:00-10:00pm, Pierce 301 (see Piazza each week to confirm)

Announcements

Please sign up for the Piazza group!
You need to be running the most recent CS50 appliance (2014 edition). If you want a VM with the os161 tools already installed, you can download it from here
Please bring laptops to class, regularly.
We will have two sections each week. We schedule them for two hours, but they will typically be shorter. You may attend whichever section you want. You may attend both sections, but they will typically contain the same information.

Prerequisites

Computer Science 61 or permission of instructor.

Text

Doeppner: Operating Systems in depth (required)

Overview

This course is an introduction to operating systems. After completing this course, you should be able to:

Explain how operating systems provide the abstractions with which programmers and users are familiar.
Work effectively with a partner.
Design, implement, modify, and analyze complex software systems
Undertake different types of design projects including: implementing to a well-defined interface, designing appropriate interfaces to provide specified functionality, extending an existing body of code.
Explain through examples how violation of good design and coding practices lead to security problems.
Analyze how operating systems problems are addressed in different systems and understand why particular approaches were taken.

We teach this class in a combination flipped and conventional, but highly interactive, style. Days on which we are officially flipped are marked clearly on the syllabus. Each one will (almost always) have:

Pre-class work: typically reading and/or video clips on a particular topic.
Web-work: a short web-based form that will ask you to demonstrate understanding of the pre-class work.

On these days, attendance is mandatory and you should have completed both the pre-class work and the web work before coming to class. I check the web work before class so that we can discuss issues that were not clear from the pre-class work. While we do not expect that you will be writing the majority of OS161 code during these flipped sessions, we will use them to help you become familiar with the code base you'll be using this semester, select and use appropriate synchronization primitives, and evaluate and improve design documents.

Classes that are not flipped will frequently still have interactive in-class work, but will not require any pre-class preparation. These more conventional classes will frequently take place while you are working on the three heavy assignments for the course. Although I will not take attendance for those classes, attendance is strongly encouraged.

Although this is our third year using this style, the precise structure of the classes continues to be a work in progress. We always welcome feedback -- tell us what is working for you and what is not working for you. You can read about my first experience flipping on my blog.

Course Requirements	Course Policies
Class participation (10%)	In lieu of class participation, students may send comments/questions (regularly) via email.
Six homework assignments (50%)	No late days for assignments 0 and 1
Midterm (15%)	Assignments 2-5 completed in teams of 2
Final take-home exam (25%)	5 total late days for assignments 2-5

Collaboration Policy

There are three types of work associated with this course and each has its own specific policy for collaboration.

Web Work: These are pre-class assignments due the day of class and should be completed by individuals without collaboration.
Homework assignments: Homework assignments are to be completed by the individual or team whose name(s) appear(s) on the submission. You are free to discuss the assignment with anyone else in the class, including design documents, debugging tips, or suggested tools. When such discussions influence your design or implementation, you must identify the individuals who influenced you in the written documents that accompany your assignment. Similarly, if you get design ideas from a web site, book, or external piece of code, you should cite those sources as well.
Exams: No collaboration is allowed.

We encourage students to talk to each other about the course. In particular, you can always discuss technical details about software used in the course. You can share design information, help each other debug, brainstorm ideas, talk about CS161 over dinner, shout out breakthroughs in your sleep, etc. Academic integrity requires that when you submit work, you make it clear who contributed to the work and from where ideas came.