CSE 451: Operating Systems

Overview

CSE 451 is an undergraduate course on operating systems. During the course you will complete several labs, working in teams of two. Each lab will add a new feature to a primitive operating system called xk. At the end of this class, you will have a deeper understanding of the abstractions created by the OS, why they are needed, and how they are done. You should also be more comfortable using and reasoning about OS services and their performance.

Textbooks

Exams

There will be no midterm or final.

Assignments

Instead, you will have problem sets and labs throughout the quarter.
Problem sets cover lecture topics and will be due a week after the last lecture for a topic.
You can come to office hours and ask related questions on Ed, but they are to be done individually.
We have set up the lab environment on the attu servers so make sure you are able to access attu. Let us know if there's any problem.

Grades

Roughly 70% projects and 30% problem sets.

Policies

Reading

You will be given reading assignments associated with lecture and section. You should finish the reading before coming to class - we'll assume you've done this reading, and the lectures will enhance the material, rather than regurgitating it.

Late days

Each problem set has a 24-hour grace period, during which work is accepted without penalty. No credit is granted after the grace period expires.

Each lab comes with a 48-hour grace period, during which work is accepted without penalty.
For the code portion only, we accept submissions past the grace period, with 1% deduction for each additional day that it is late.
To submit past the grace period, you need to email cse451-staff@cs with your group info and the number of deduction days.

All work must be turned in by June 5th 11:59pm, no credit is granted after.

Reach out to the instructors if you have additional extension requests.

Cheating vs. collaboration

Collaboration is a very good thing. On the other hand, cheating is considered a very serious offense and is vigorously prosecuted. Vigorous prosecution requires that you be advised of the cheating policy of the course before the offending act.

For this quarter, the policy is simple: don’t cheat. You know it when you’re doing it. We’ll recognize it when you do it. For example:

  • Never share your problem set solution.
  • Never share code or text on the project.
  • Never use someone else’s code or text in your solutions.
  • Never consult project code or text that might be on the Internet.

On the other hand, for this class, you are strongly encouraged to:

  • Share ideas.
  • Explain your code to someone to see if they know why it doesn’t work.
  • Help someone else debug if they’ve run into a wall.

If you obtain help of any kind, always write the name(s) of your sources.

Please read CSE’s Academic Misconduct Policy.

Disability Accomodations

University of Washington Page

Religious Accomodations

University of Washington Policy