I came across this course after going through the 6.824 from RTM last year and enjoying the hands on approach a lot! Teaching using the xv6 OS ( https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2012/xv6.html ) is super valuable. I do not consider myself an expert in operating systems or C, but digging through the xv6 source code is quite fun, the code is easily readable and very newby friendly.
My OS class at the University of Wisconsin used xv6. I love and hate that little operating system. My professor had actually taken the time to logically split all the source files into folders for their given purpose. When I found the original source and the flat structure, I died a little inside. There was no way I would be able to recreate a folder structure that would also successfully build with make. I tried and…
MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#22Does studying toy operating systems teach strictly more, or just different skills, than studying bare-metal embedded frameworks like https://github.com/rsta2/circle (which powers https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi , unlike Zynthian which is Linux-based ( https://zynthian.org/#software ))? I dropped out of uni before completing my OS course, and I planned to look into mt32-pi, but sadly struggled with hardware and so…
when i took operating systems, we extended linux with an eye to building reliable systems (we built stuff like fault injectors for syscalls) as that was where the professor's graduate work had been and made various toy modifications to actual linux subsystems.
maybe folks working with nachos or one of these other toy operating systems get more topical depth (implement a scheduler or vm subsystem from scratch or such), but i personally found the experience of making real modifications to linux to be both more interesting and rewarding. (although many in the course struggled)
Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#23Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#24I guess some of the GUI stuff is worth something, but you can just make a ray traced OS with Unity so.
Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#25Most body of knowledge built from working with Linux and Windows can be wholly ignored when building the New Operating System. There is barely anything worth of salvaging in either of the 'operating systems' or their lessons learned (besides not doing what they did). I guess some of the GUI stuff is worth something, but you can just make a ray traced OS with Unity so.
Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, thank MIT... and consider donating.
The MIT endowment made $9 billion in profit last year, they don't need your $5 to keep releasing their course materials. It's basically marketing anyway. https://news.mit.edu/2021/mit-put-unexpected-gains-work-imme...
(Shrug) Neither does God, so I guess it's up to you and sydthrowaway what you do with your $5.
Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#27I came across a compiler bug when doing the course with gcc outputting incorrect ASM which was quite exciting as I've never come across one in the wild before. I really should check if that's been fixed and report it if not.
Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#28Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#29I wonder why they are not sharing the lecture videos or at least sound recordings. It really helps digesting the material in the readings!
Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering
#30OSTEP by Remzi and Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau is a great read for anybody interested in operating systems ( https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ ). The projects in their class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were mainly making edits to the xv6 OS.