Topic outline

  • If you want to know what software, systems, and software systems are, you definitely should take this course. Knowledge of operating system technologies gives you the basic tools to understand any complex software system. The technologies are applied ubiquitously, spanning from tiny sensor tags to huge data centers, but also throughout the software stack from machine interface level to high abstraction level application software.

    Note that the Covid-19 pandemic can affect the course operation during the academic year 2021-2022.

    Material

    The course material is summarized by the lecture slides. The recommended textbook is:

    • William Stallings: Operating Systems Internals and Design Principles. (Any recent edition is ok for studying the course.)
    Use the lecture slides as a guide for studying the book (see Section Materials). The course handles issues widely and addresses also recent developments in the area, this true especially for the lectures.

    The material on A+ (link) concentrates on the exercises. There also other resources to be used. As the course progresses, a section containing resource for each of the course weeks will be available here on MyCourses.

    Learning outcomes and content

    Learning Outcome: You understand the principles of operating system implementation.

    Content: Systems in general, software system structures, processing, memory systems, storage systems, concurrency and parallelism.

    Schedule

    The course spans over two periods (periods I-II during the autumn) and consists of nine course weeks.

    • course weeks 1-6 during period I (calendar weeks 37-42)
    • a break week (no teaching during calendar week 43)
    • course weeks 7-9 during period II (calendar weeks 44-46)

    There are weekly lectures, exercise sessions, and exercises (i.e., assignments to be done as homework).

    Note that the amount of work you need depends on the grade you are targeting. For a top grade, you will need a lot of work hours.

    Components of the course

    The course consist of multiple components

    • the lectures and supporting material
    • exercises and exercise sessions
    • the exam
    For passing the course, passing both the exam and the exercises is mandatory.

    Previous courses

    Substitutes for Courses: Replaces the course CSE-C3200 and its predecessors.

    Contact

    If you have something to ask about the subject matter, attend lectures/exercises or use the course discussion forum (seek the weekly sections for more info). If you have something to ask about the course, contact cs-c3140 at aalto.fi. Do not use the personal email addresses of the course personnel for contacting.