Operating Systems
Course description
The goal of this course is to help you understand the operating system, one of the most important pieces of software that almost all programs interact with.
Each module covers both the conceptual foundations and practical aspects for software engineers. You will write small programs and analyze: "How does the operating system do this? How do my knowledge explain the program's behavior?" By the end of each module, you will have a better understanding of operating systems and discover new ways to make programs more efficient and secure.
The core of the course consists of tasks on each topic. We recommend solving them independently, using ready-made solutions and additional explanations as needed. Although a textbook is not mandatory, we highly recommend "Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces" ("OSTEP") as a supplement and indicate the chapters for reading alongside the tasks. We also suggest additional resources from the book "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective" if you have a copy, as well as other useful materials.
Most of the topics we discuss are applicable to all operating systems, but where necessary, we will focus on Unix family operating systems, particularly through the lens of GNU/Linux, which we recommend running as a virtual machine if needed.
Important: We strongly recommend completing a course on computer systems or its equivalent before this course. Many subjects, such as basic computer architecture and knowledge of the C language, are considered fundamental.
Watch Online
All Course Lessons (66)
| # | Lesson Title | Duration | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 001 CPU timing Demo | 55:07 | |
| 2 | 002 Stack overflow | 42:13 | |
| 3 | 003 Byte write | 22:47 | |
| 4 | 004 An introduction to operating systems exploring syscalls as the interface | 01:22:44 | |
| 5 | 005 What happens during a context switch | 07:28 | |
| 6 | 006 Learning how to better use man pages | 09:01 | |
| 7 | 007 A brief introduction to strace and ltrace | 17:04 | |
| 8 | 008 The motivation for address space layout randomization | 04:42 | |
| 9 | 009 What is POSIX compliance | 05:06 | |
| 10 | 010 What exactly is the kernel | 04:20 | |
| 11 | 011 What exactly is a syscall and how is it not a C stdlib function | 06:20 | |
| 12 | 012 Why time-sharing operating systems were such a big deal | 05:47 | |
| 13 | 013 Pre-emptive multitasking and the timer interrupt | 06:49 | |
| 14 | 014 What is the stack (simple explanation) | 05:44 | |
| 15 | 015 The early history of Unix | 07:35 | |
| 16 | 016 A brief overview of the flavors of Unix (ie why your grep may be different to mine) | 12:40 | |
| 17 | 017 What is the stack (detailed explanation) | 16:22 | |
| 18 | 018 Signalbox | 33:31 | |
| 19 | 019 Signal logger | 01:09:07 | |
| 20 | 020 Custom shell basic execution | 57:33 | |
| 21 | 021 Custom shell pipes | 01:06:30 | |
| 22 | 022 Custom shell job control | 01:39:47 | |
| 23 | 023 Exploring the process lifecycle | 01:16:20 | |
| 24 | 024 Pipelines dont execute sequentially | 04:48 | |
| 25 | 025 Fork details COW and vfork | 10:05 | |
| 26 | 026 What exactly is a process | 03:49 | |
| 27 | 027 Details of using pipes.mp4 | 11:09 | |
| 28 | 028 Exploring processes by considering ps output | 17:43 | |
| 29 | 029 What is a signal | 12:20 | |
| 30 | 030 Understanding process groups and sessions | 13:15 | |
| 31 | 031 IO multiplexing select poll epoll and kqueue | 10:48 | |
| 32 | 032 Is everything a file in Unix | 22:07 | |
| 33 | 033 Brief overview of the process lifecycle | 13:02 | |
| 34 | 034 Foreground and background process groups | 05:00 | |
| 35 | 035 Internal representations of a process in Unix V6 and Linux | 21:55 | |
| 36 | 036 Threaded counter | 18:10 | |
| 37 | 037 Multi-threaded mergesort | 58:25 | |
| 38 | 038 Multi-threaded fizzbuzz | 25:18 | |
| 39 | 039 Ring buffer | 01:09:22 | |
| 40 | 040 The motivation for threads contrasted with IO multiplexing | 38:12 | |
| 41 | 041 What is a good scheduling policy | 54:49 | |
| 42 | 042 Understanding race conditions | 14:45 | |
| 43 | 043 Starting and waiting on POSIX threads | 04:40 | |
| 44 | 044 Processes threads and lightweight threads | 18:23 | |
| 45 | 045 Basic mmap | 17:40 | |
| 46 | 046 Shared memory stream | 54:05 | |
| 47 | 047 Custom malloc | 01:26:52 | |
| 48 | 048 The historical context for todays virtual memory system | 38:20 | |
| 49 | 049 What is swap memory and is it a good idea | 11:29 | |
| 50 | 050 The basic idea behind paging | 02:53 | |
| 51 | 051 Copy-on-write zero-on-demand and other virtual memory tricks | 12:42 | |
| 52 | 052 The motivation for multi-level page tables | 18:28 | |
| 53 | 053 An overview of the mmap system call | 24:01 | |
| 54 | 054 Why you probably shouldnt use the default 4KiB page size | 11:28 | |
| 55 | 055 A detailed view of Intels multi-level page tables | 13:30 | |
| 56 | 056 Custom ls | 36:40 | |
| 57 | 057 Mystery file | 22:13 | |
| 58 | 058 Custom file system | 01:01:32 | |
| 59 | 059 Whats the big idea behind file systems | 06:05 | |
| 60 | 060 Some virtual files and file systems | 08:19 | |
| 61 | 061 Sketching out a basic file system design | 23:41 | |
| 62 | 062 What is an inode | 10:07 | |
| 63 | 063 Container chroot | 28:56 | |
| 64 | 064 Container namespaces | 01:02:00 | |
| 65 | 065 Container cgroups | 32:36 | |
| 66 | 066 Container extras | 27:16 |
Unlock unlimited learning
Get instant access to all 65 lessons in this course, plus thousands of other premium courses. One subscription, unlimited knowledge.
Learn more about subscriptionComments
0 commentsWant to join the conversation?
Sign in to commentSimilar courses
Trigonometry Mastered
Computer Networking
Lemon Squeezy Course
