NEWS: |
Class: |
MW 11:00-12:15pm, Sennott Square 5317 |
Instructor: | Prof. Daniel Mosse (mosse@cs.pitt.edu) |
Office Hours: | 6423 SENSQ, MW 9:30- 11:00 and 12:15-1pm (or by appointment) |
TA: | TBA |
Office Hours: | TBA |
Office: | |
No Required Text, but since we'll be describing PRINCIPLES, most texts in distributed systems are acceptable supplemental reading, even books as old as "Distributed Systems" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Maarten Van Steen |
Course
Objectives
The purpose of this course is to understand and use the basic concepts
of distributed operating systems, common to most computer systems, which interfaces
the machine with the programmer. In particular, this class is meant to
introduce processes such as the processing unit, process management, synchronization,
memory management and I/O management.
The successful student will be able to understand the basic components of a computer operating system, and the interactions among the various components. The course will cover an introduction on the policies for scheduling, deadlocks, memory management, synchronization, and file systems. The students will implement solutions via programs using Unix/Linux.
Grading
Programming
Assignments
The
programming assignments are an important component of the course.
Mostly, there will be group projects, with groups of two. You can
choose your groupmate, and you will be required to explain what your
part in the project was.
Important dates: Projects due at 2am in some date (TBD) in october, november, december (3 projects).
Attendance
Class attendance is mandatory. Homeworks, assignments, and important
dates will be posted on the class web page, but this is provided as a courtesy
and is not always complete. Contact your classmates to avoid missing something important if you skip class.
Office hours are optional. They are your chance to ask the professor
and the TA questions about the material being covered, the programming
assignments, etc. Take advantage of them.
Academic
Honesty: Collaboration vs. Cheating
This really should not be an issue, but to make things as clear as
possible the following is necessary.
You are encouraged to discuss the course material and concepts with other students in the class. However, all work that you submit must be your own. Under no circumstances may you look at anyone else's code or show anyone else your code. And while you may discuss the concepts used in the programming assignments, you may not discuss implementation details of the assignments themselves.
If you are caught copying or otherwise turning in work that is not solely your own, you will fail the course.
The bottom line is that you are expected to conduct yourself as a person of integrity - you are expected to adhere to the highest standards of academic integrity. This means that plagiarism1 in any form is completely unacceptable. As a (soon to be) computing professional, I encourage you to consult the code of ethics appropriate to your discipline2.
On work that is essentially the same as that of other students, plagiarism will be assumed until disproved. This includes identically incorrect, off-the-wall, and highly unusual duplicate answers where the probability of a sheer coincidence is extremely unlikely. All parties to this unacceptable collaboration will receive the same treatment.
You should bring a picture identification with you to all examinations and be prepared to show it upon request.
If you are unsure of what is and is not allowed by this policy, talk to the instructor.
1 pla-gia-rize vt. to steal and
pass of as one's own (the ideas or words of another) to present as one's
own an idea or product derived from an existing source - pla-gia-riz-ern.
(source: Webster's New World Dictionary).
2 The Association for Computing Machinery
is http://www.acm.org/, the IEEE is http://www.ieee.org/ and the IEEE Computer
Society is http://www.computer.org/.
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