Turning Linux into an Instructional Operating System

Áreas de investigación:
  • Sin categoría
Año: 2018
Tipo de publicación: Artículo en conferencia Palabras clave: education; operating systems
Autores: 6, 5 2
Título del libro: Proceedings of 3rd Canadian International Conference on Advances in Education, Teaching & Technology
Dirección: Toronto, Canada
Organización: Unique Conferences Canada Mes: Julio
ISBN: 9781988652153
BibTex:
Abstract:
Both, the curriculum proposal for degrees related to Computer Science from the two main professional associations worldwide in information and communication technologies, and the curricula defined by most universities dedicate a considerable number of hours to cover Operating Systems (OS) concepts. Nevertheless, practical teaching of OS at undergraduate level is currently a controversial issue. Some universities consider the use of a real OS means a too steep learning curve and its complexity prevents an appropriate learning of 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 from reality students will encounter in their professional activity. This paper presents a solution adopted at the University of Vigo (Spain), that tries to get the advantages of both approaches and avoid their drawbacks. It is based on: (i) to combine small lab practices in order to acquire theoretical concepts and a medium sized project to deal with the complexity of a real OS; and (ii) a new laboratory environment designed for teaching OS, that greatly facilitates the development of applications to test features both provided by Linux and developed by students, minifying effort required to create testing scenarios, and hiding, as far as necessary, unimportant OS details. We also show the results of the evaluation process carried out during last academic years.