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Experiences from turning Linux into an instructional operating system

Abstract:

The curriculum proposal for degrees related to Computer Science from the two main professional associations worldwide in information and communication technologies dedicate a considerable number of hours to operating system (OS) concepts, and so do the curricula defined by most universities. Nevertheless, the practical teaching of OS at an undergraduate level is currently a controversial issue. Some universities consider that the use of a real OS implies too steep a learning curve and its complexity can prevent an appropriate learning of the main concepts. Other universities consider that the use of an educational OS or the development of a simplified one from scratch are activities too far away from the reality that students will encounter in their professional lives. This paper presents a solution adopted at the University of Vigo, that tries to get the advantages of both approaches and avoid their drawbacks. It is based on combining small lab practices to acquire theoretical concepts and a medium-sized project to deal with the complexity of a real OS. We designed a new laboratory environment for teaching OS, which greatly facilitates the development of applications to test features both provided by Linux and developed by students, minimizing the effort required to create testing scenarios, and hiding, as far as necessary, less important OS details. We also show the results of the evaluation process carried out during the last academic years.