UCLA's lower-division CS111 Introduction to Operating Systems is the prerequisite course. A review presentation is available which covers important topics with which you are assumed to be familiar. Look it over. If there's some unfamiliar material here, you probably need to brush up on it. If there's a lot, you should probably consider taking CS111 first.
This course is primarily discussion/lecture-oriented, with 18 discussions/lectures and one mid-term exam and one final exam scheduled. One guest lecture is scheduled to be given by another currently active operating systems research professor.
The course meets Tuesday and Thursday, from 2-4 p.m., in Boelter 5420, for ten consecutive weeks beginning October 3, 2000, and ending December 7, 2000. (see this summary of important dates)
Class material comes from several main sources: textbooks, journals, and conferences. You may also find that lists of papers and projects maintained by students at other schools is also helpful.
The formal textbook for the class is Advanced Concepts in Operating Systems: Distributed, Database, and Multiprocessor Operating Systems by Singhal and Shivaratri, 1994. It's in the ASUCLA bookstore, but can also be purchased online through ecompare.com or bestbookbuys.com for much, much less than you'll pay here on campus.
You are responsible for attending every lecture, studying assigned material prior to each lecture (as per this schedule and any other assignments given orally in the lectures), preparing and submitting a term paper or project, and taking both the midterm and final exams. Exams are "take home" in nature, over weekends with additional days, essay-oriented and cover assigned material and oral lecture content.
The term paper and midterm exam each represent 25% of the course grade; the final exam is 50%.
All work done on term papers and exams is to be the result of individual student effort. UCLA has prepared two short documents on academic integrity, a syllabus insert and a guide. If you haven't read these before, you should! Please read and reflect on this statement on academic integrity, and then print and submit a signed copy to the instructor on the second day of class (October 5, 2000).
A "6-up format" PostScript version of the PowerPoint slides used in each lecture is normally available and listed here by noon the day of the lecture, but occasionally might not be ready until just before class.
The formal office hours are 4-5 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday in my office (3564B Boelter), following the lectures. Feel free to drop in anytime unannounced, though the likelihood of my being in the office increases dramatically with an advance phone call (310/206-8696) or e-mail. I usually see e-mail within an hour or so of its transmission, and it is my practice to respond immediately to student e-mail.