Sunday, December 12, 2004

Need for code examples in OS course

Recently TCE had some syllabus revisions done for the computer science dept. I heard that the people in charge unanimously rejected the idea of including portions of MINIX into the curriculum.

A course in OS usually contains topics such as process, IPC, deadlocks, etc.. However these theoretical topics are inadequate. The student does not usually get the full picture or atleast a gross idea of how the thing works. Often students tend to think that an OS is something that belongs to a completely different world. They dont think of applying those concepts in their day to day programming. This is a case seen widely in CSE courses across TamilNadu and probably all over India.

I think a course on OS should contain some code example. An ideal choice would be the Linux kernel. However, the Linux kernel is a production system and hence would not be that helpful to a new learner. MINIX is a good choice. The book "OS implementation and design" by Prof. A.S.Tanenbaum explains MINIX in a way that would be easily understood by the students.

Such a approach would bring the students to a higher level. They'll get trained to understand code written by other people. They'll be encouraged to read other's code and ideas before implementing their own.

Friday, December 10, 2004

KernelAnalysis-HOWTO: Linux Multitasking

Need this to fine tune the timer.

KernelAnalysis-HOWTO: Linux Multitasking

Interesting OS projects

Kernel architecture is one thing.. OS architecture is another..

The Plan 9 OS: http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/
The Inferno OS: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?InfernoOs

Google Search: elf 32 specification

Some references on ELF specification. This is needed for the relocation of the first task.

http://www.skyfree.org/linux/references/ELF_Format.pdf
http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/elf.html
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall04/cos217/reading/elf.pdf
http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_2.0.0/LSB-Core-S390X/LSB-Core-S390X/s390x-elf.html
http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_2.0.0/LSB-Core/LSB-Core/generic-elf.html

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Patent Prescription

An interesting article on the increasing irrelevance of the patent system

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/careers/careerstemplate.jsp?ArticleId=i120204