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Teaching Operating Systems: Just Enough Abstraction

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ICT Education (SACLA 2016)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 642))

Abstract

There are two major approaches to teaching operating systems: conceptual and detailed. I explore the middle ground with an approach designed to equip students with the tools to explore detail later as the need arises, without requiring the time and grasp of detail needed to understand a full OS implementation. To meet those goals, I apply various strategies to different concepts, for example, faking the detail and using techniques from computer architecture simulation. The course aims to give students a better sense of how things work than a conceptual approach without the time required for a full implementation-based course.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

    Philip Machanick

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  1. Philip Machanick
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Correspondence to Philip Machanick .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Stefan Gruner

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Machanick, P. (2016). Teaching Operating Systems: Just Enough Abstraction. In: Gruner, S. (eds) ICT Education. SACLA 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 642. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47680-3_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47680-3_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47679-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47680-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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