Teaching operating systems: Just enough abstraction

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.