2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses School of Computing Undergraduate major in Computer Science
System Software
- Academic unit or major
- Undergraduate major in Computer Science
- Instructor(s)
- Takuo Watanabe
- Class Format
- Lecture (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 7-8 Mon (S4-201(S421)) / 7-8 Thu (S4-201(S421))
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- CSC.T371
- Number of credits
- 200
- Course offered
- 2025
- Offered quarter
- 3Q
- Syllabus updated
- Sep 18, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
This course examines the design and implementation of operating system kernels and surveys the background theories and algorithms
Course description and aims
By the end of this course, students will be able to outline the structure of typical operating system kernels and explain important concepts such as interrupt-based kernel implementations, process management, synchronization, mutual exclusion, memory management, file systems, I/O systems and so on. In addition, students will be able to explain the implementation of Unix-like operating systems through a series of programming exercises using xv6 (RISC-V version).
Keywords
operating system kernels, system calls, processes, scheduling, synchronization, mutual exclusion algorithms, memory management, virtual memory, file systems, protection mechanisms, security mechanisms, verification, model checking
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Classroom learning and programming exercises
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Roles and Functions of Operating Systems |
Understand the roles and functions of operating systems |
| Class 2 | Overview of Unix and xv6 |
Understand the overview of Unix and xv6 |
| Class 3 | Interrupts and System Calls |
Understand interrupts and system calls |
| Class 4 | Processes and Threads (1): Basics, Multiprocessing |
Understand the basic concepts of process and threads as well as multiprocessing |
| Class 5 | Processes and Threads (2): Process Scheduling |
Understand process scheduling algorithms and their implementation methods |
| Class 6 | Processes and Threads (3): Synchronization and Mutual Exclusion Algorithms |
Understand the concepts of synchronization and mutual exclusion algorithms |
| Class 7 | Processes and Threads (4): Specification and Verification of Synchronization and Mutual Exclusion |
Understand the specification and verification methods of synchronization and mutual exclusion |
| Class 8 | Memory Management (1): Objectives and Basic Concepts |
Understand the objectives and basic concepts of memory management |
| Class 9 | Memory Management (2): Concepts and Algorithms for Virtual Memory Systems |
Understand the concepts of virtual memory systems and related algorithms |
| Class 10 | Memory Management (3): Implementations of Virtual Memory Systems |
Understand the implementation methods of virtual memory systems |
| Class 11 | File Systems (1): Objectives and Basic Concepts |
Understand the objectives and basic concepts of file systems |
| Class 12 | File Systems (2): File Management Algorithms |
Understand file management algorithms |
| Class 13 | File Systems (3): Implementations of File Systems |
Understand the implementation methods of file systems |
| Class 14 | I/O Systems and their Implementations |
Understand I/O systems and their Implementations |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
None required (course materials will be provided via LMS)
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Russ Cox, Frans Kaashoek and Robert Morris, "xv6: a simple, Unix-like teaching operating system" (document distributed with xv6)
Evaluation methods and criteria
Programming Exercises (2 times): 60%
Final Exam: 40%
Related courses
- CSC.T243 ： Procedural Programming Fundamentals
- CSC.T253 ： Advanced Procedural Programming
- CSC.T344 ： System Programming
- CSC.T262 ： Assembly Language
- CSC.T363 ： Computer Architecture
Prerequisites
Students must have succesfully completed the related courses or have equivalent knowledge.
Students are desired to have familiarity with basic Unix terminal commands.
Other
https://titech-os.github.io