Advanced operating systems

Summary

This course teaches the design and implementation of modern operating systems through the lens of the Linux kernel. Using an extensive hands-on approach, students study how classical OS principles are realized in a production kernel and explore new design ideas proposed over the past two decades.

Content

Keywords

Operating systems, Linux kernel, concurrency, scalability, memory management, file systems, virtualization, OS security

Learning Prerequisites

Required courses

CS-200 Computer architecture

CS-202 Computer systems (or COM-208 Computer networks / CS-323 Introduction to operating systems)

CS-214 Software construction (or CS-210 Functional programming)

CS-300 Data-Intensive Systems (or CS-322 Introduction to database systems)

Important concepts to start the course

This is a hands-on course that requires a solid background in operating systems, computer architecture, and systems programming in C. Students must be comfortable reading and writing low-level code.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

• Identify and manage key components of operating systems
• Choose or critique design choices for OS
• Create and design an OS with practical choices
• Report performance and possible optimizations for applications

Teaching methods

• In-class lectures
• Weekly exercise sessions preparing for the labs
• Programming labs
• A semester-long project

Expected student activities

• Attend lectures and tutorial sessions
• Participate actively in the course
• Complete programming exercises

Assessment methods

• Labs
• Project
• Quiz

Supervision

Resources

Moodle Link

• https://go.epfl.ch/CS-477