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MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering

pdos.csail.mit.edu

21–30 of 51 posts

Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering

#21
post #8
post #2

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…

I rebuilt it into a folder structure when I was younger trying to teach myself operating systems. It wasn’t that difficult if you’re familiar with make.

Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering

#22

Does 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…

toy operating systems allow for more depth in the assignments, where working with real-world software systems with real world complexity requires ramping up.

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

#24
Most 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

#25
post #24

Most 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.

Guess file sizes based on their reflection!

Re: MIT 6.S081 – Operating System Engineering

#26

Earlier 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...

The MIT endowment made $9 billion in profit last year, they don't need your $5

(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

#27
I did this course after someone mentioned in here a year ago, and have recommended it to a lot of people since. It's a very well structured and also up to date providing a good intro to RISC-V.

I 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

#30

OSTEP 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.

Damn I love the tech community, so much amazing free content
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