CS 180 - Introduction to Operating Systems

Reminder: These notes will be taken down permanently on Friday, December 16, 2016. If you want to save a copy for yourself, please download them before that time.

Information

If you have any questions about any assignment, lecture, quiz, etc., please post the questions in the CS180 Forum on the CS180 Moodle website. There are many people that can answer your question. If you just send your question to me in an email, it may be a while until (or if) I get back to you. If you have a question about an assignment, it's very likely that other students have the same question and they will benefit from the posted answers. Also, you can use the Academic Support Center for help.

Syllabus Office hours Important dates for this school year. Academic Support Center Schedule Digipen's online library - This is where you can access Safari Books Online, which contains 1,000s of technical books covering many topics. Some required reading will be available here.

The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook. It is one of the highest-rated Linux books listed on Amazon. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to understand more about Linux systems programming. Sample chapters: Chapter 4 - File I/O Chapter 24 - Process Creation Chapter 52 - POSIX Message Queues Table of Contents for the book.

References

• Code documentation
• Code Quality Guidelines
• Delivering code in the course.
• Solutions to the practice exercises at the end of each chapter of the optional textbook.
• Documentation:
  • Online man pages
  • make utility
  • GCC compilers
    • ansi This turns off certain features of GCC that are incompatible with ISO C90
    • pedantic Issue all the warnings demanded by strict ISO C
  • GNU Documentation Online Includes documentation for other GNU tools cvs, gdb, etc.
  • An Introduction to GCC This is a PDF document that shows how to use the command line compiler. (It doesn't teach C/C++).
  • C/C++ Run-Time Library Functions
  • The man page for the gcc/g++ compiler I created this PDF using the command-line.

• Grading tags Codes added to your assignments.
• Style Guide from CS120 When in doubt, follow the guide.
• Sysinternals Many must-have utilities to explore many aspects of the Windows OS. (Now owned by Microsoft)
• Advanced Bash Scripting Guide A tutorial for learning bash scripting.
• Various computer specs for testing in this class.
• tablen for 64-bit Linux.
• dumpit for 64-bit Linux.
• Understanding the marks on your programming assignments.
• Linux Filesystem Hierarchy This document describes the layout of a UNIX-like operating system (Linux, BSD, iOS, Mac OS X, Android, etc.) Another document is here.
• Linux Kernel Versions from version 2.5.1 (December 17, 2001) to the present.
• You can browse through the Linux kernel source code. That's why open source software is so valuable and why we use Linux. No secrets. Keep in mind, of course, that reading OS code is not for the faint of heart!

• WINE HQ WINE Headquarters. The place to find out more about the non-emulator emulator.
• WINE App Database This site lists over 20,000 applications and what their WINE compatibility is.
• Wine at Wikipedia for more information.

• mem.leaks.cpp Sample program to test out Valgrind. You may also be interested in kcachegrind as well. (A graphical profiler for Linux.)
• Dr. Memory A cross-platform (Linux/Mac/Windows) memory debugger much like Valgrind. It was developed at Google. Currently, only works on 32-bit programs. You'll need to install the 32-bit libraries on your 64-bit Linux system:

  sudo apt-get install gcc-multilib
  sudo apt-get install g++-multilib

• How to calculate your grade: This was a practice assignment from CS120. I've made a spreadsheet to help you. Just change the numbers in red in the "Your score" column to reflect your own scores. If you've never used a spreadsheet before, now is a good time to learn because every college graduate must know how to use one. Google for anything you need to know. You can download the LibreOffice suite from here.
• LinuxVoice Magazine This is a great magazine that contains lots of great information about Linux and other relevant stuff (e.g. Raspberry Pi). It's kind of expensive to buy the print version (it comes from the UK). The nicest thing is that after 9 months, the issue is free to download (PDF). Each issue is about 100 pages of full-color, ad-free (almost) information. It is very polished and professional looking. You can download the free back issues here. Highly recommended!
• Various IDEs for Linux (also on Mac OS X and Windows): KDevelop, NetBeans, QtCreator, Code::Blocks, CodeLite, Eclipse, and CLion

• odroid computer from HardKernel.
• ODROID-XU4 This one has 8 cores! Check out how it migrates tasks between the cores.
• Raspberry Pi Another small, cheap device that runs Linux. A very popular device. I recommend this book Raspberry Pi User Guide to get started. Updated to cover the B+ version. Written by the founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
• VoCore A Linux computer (1 square inch). It runs BusyBox, which is a really small version of Linux for embedded systems.
• CuBox-i4Pro A pretty powerful little computer.

Notes

• Virtualization Virtual machines, host/guest operating systems.
  • Linux Mint User's Manual - The documentation contains more details about Linux Mint. It's only about 50 pages, so you should sit at your Linux computer and read through it.
  • This is the GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline to see where distributions come from. The image is from here. A great site to read up about the top 100 distributions is distrowatch.com.
  • Here is the list of release names that Ubuntu uses. (Mint is based on Ubuntu.) We're using Mint 18, which is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus). Some background on how the names were "suggested" or "voted for" is here.
  • Here is the list of release names used by Linux Mint.
• Introduction Overview of Operating Systems
• Command line options Mead's Guide to getopt (Programming with command line options using getopt.)
• Operating System API Single vs. multi-tasking, System calls vs. library calls, kernel/user mode, protection.
• Processes Process states, scheduling, interprocess communication, POSIX, Win32
• Threads Single vs. multi-threading, Thread API, POSIX, Win32
• Memory Physical, logical, addressing, paging
• Scheduling Non-preemptive, preemptive, priorities, multicore scheduling.
• Synchronization Race conditions, critical sections, locking, mutexes, semaphores.
• Storage Drives, formatting, scheduling algorithms, RAID, NAS

• The following topics will NOT be on the final exam:
  • File Systems Files, API, inodes, directories
  • Using the bash shell A full-featured shell with its own language built-in.
  • The Boot Process POST, BIOS, Boot loaders, MBR, Partition tables, GUID partitions
  • Mead's Guide to the Secure Shell (SSH) Client, server, tunneling, keys, TCP wrappers, SSHFS, etc.
  • Mead's Guide to Signals on Linux. Sending, receiving, and handling various signals.
  • Mead's Guide to Building Software on Linux A detailed step-by-step showing the various ways of building and installing software on Linux with examples.

Homework Assignments

• Problems from the website, textbook, and other sources:

  Problems or Reading	Due Date
  Overview of the major Linux distributions - We will be spending some time studying Linux, and this will give you a good idea of why I chose the distributions I did. There are over 100 different "versions" of Linux, and this gives you some insight into why Linux has so many choices (and why it is used more than any other operating system). Be prepared to answer the question, "Besides Mint, which of these distributions do you think you would use and why?" Check out this short video to see just how popular Linux is. It's a couple of years old, so the numbers will be much higher than are stated. If you're new to Linux and interested in customizing the Cinnamon interface, here is an introductory video to do that. The guy that did the video has lots of other related videos that you might find useful to watch. You can also search for "Linux Mint" on youtube for lots of others. Read sections 1.1 through 1.8 in the PDF that comes with Virtual Box. This is for version 5.0.0. Digipen may be using a different version, but the documentation should be almost identical. You can also read the latest documentation online. To get a decent overview of what Linux is compared to Windows, read the Ultimate Linux Guide for Windows Users. This should help you get started with the whole "Linux" thing.	Friday, September 9, 2016
  Install Linux Mint, either natively or via a virtual machine. The version for this class is 18 "Sarah" - Cinnamon (64-bit) . You can add the other desktops (MATE, KDE, etc.) afterwards. Version 18 comes with the correct compiler version that we are going to be using for all programming assignments. It is possible to run Linux Mint 17.x and then install newer versions of the gcc compiler, but this is more work. If you are adventurous, you can read about doing that here. Read chapters 1 through 5 in The Linux Command Line. You should read this while sitting at the computer and running Linux. Also, you should realize that, although the command line in Linux may look a lot like the command line in Windows, the Linux command line (the Bash shell) is infinitely more powerful than the one in Windows. You will do well for yoursef to explore at least the basics of it. Those of you that have been using Linux or Mac OS X from the command line may only need to skim this information.	Monday, September 12, 2016
  Experiment with mem.leaks.cpp with valgrind. Yeah, it's a C++ file, but it will demonstrate a lot of bugs. (Originally developed by Prof. Volper).	Monday September 19, 2016
  Here are some questions to help you Practice with Filters.	Tuesday, September 27, 2016

• Programming Assignments

  • Assignment Submission Page - Submit all programming assignments from this page.
  • All code will be written in C, so CS180 will still follow the Style Guide from CS120
  • You can reach the Returned Folders using a browser from here.

• Programming Assignment #1 - Due Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 11:59 pm
• Programming Assignment #2 - Due Wednesday, October 12, 2016 at 11:59 pm
• Programming Assignment #3 - Due Monday, October 31, 2016 at 11:59 pm
• Programming Assignment #4 - Due Tuesday, November 8, 2016 at 11:59 pm
• Programming Assignment #5 - Due Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 11:59 pm

Additional Reading Assignments (required)

64-bit data models - 10 years ago, everyone assumed everything was 32-bit. 10 years from now, everyone is going to assume everything is 64-bit. Unfortunately during the next few years, no one is going to be able to assume anything and will need to test both. Here's a sample for you to compile and run.
• Porting to 64-bit A good article introducing some of the issues that might come up when moving from 32-bit to 64-bit.
• The Long Road to 64 Bits "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana (PDF)

Interesting reading/videos (optional)

• Video Scott Meyers: Cpu Caches and Why You Care If you're a programmer concerned with efficiency (e.g. a game programmer or Digipen student), this is a must see.
• Digipen senior uses Linux skills to help get a job at Epic Games and the Unreal Engine With Valve betting heavily on gaming on Linux with Steam, Linux is becoming an important skill to have on your resume.
• Valve CEO: Why Linux is the future of gaming. Gabe Newell explains in a presentation given at LinuxCon 2013. There's a video of the presentation here.
• Q&A: Understanding the future of Linux game development This is a recent article from the Gamasutra web site talking with "The" Linux game dev Ryan "Icculus" Gordon.

• Getting Started with Linux Game Development Ryan "Icculus" Gordon explains this in the video.
• Bruce Dawson ex-Microsoft employee (ex-Digipen instructor), now working at Valve, explains how he debugs Valve's code under Linux. He gave a similar presentation at Digipen in the Spring of 2015.
• The Reincarnation of Virtual Machines An excellent introduction to virtualization from the ACM Queue magazine. It's from 2004, but is still quite relevant. (PDF)
• IBM has invested billions of dollars in Linux and provides a wealth of free information about Linux in their Technical Library. Articles and tutorials are for both beginners and advanced users.
• CPU and GPU comparisons - How does your system rate?
  • CPU Benchmarks (Comparisons)
  • GPU Benchmarks (Comparisons)