Abstract

This talklet describes the approach, content, and results from teaching L41 : Advanced Operating Systems, a new ACS /Part III module introduced this year. The module combines lectures with a set of hands-on labs in which students use tracing and profiling tools such as DTrace and processor performance counters to explore, analyse, and present behaviour of ‘potted’ I/O, IPC , and TCP microbenchmarks in terms of protocol, OS, architectural, and micro-architectural behaviour. This teaching style offers the opportunity to explore real-world artefacts (i.e., production operating system kernels, TCP ) while avoiding the risks associated with more conventional ‘build an OS’ courses — which would be difficult to fit into our 8-week term schedule. It also provides the opportunity to link practical exercises to contemporary research — e.g., divergence of TCP implementations from the classical state machine. This talklet is intended to be fodder for discussion as much as a presentation, and will hopefully help refine the teaching style and content for its next teaching in Michaelmas term 2015.