UNIX 2011 Batch Admission Notice

A very important address-note to prospective students regarding syllabus change

(Must read before taking admission)

Greetings to all prospective students,

This note is written on the behalf of and by the authority of Dr. Vijay Gokhale Sir. Myself Yogeshwar Shukla. I am a class alumnus  and presently pursuing M.S. in computer science from the University of Nottingham, UK.This note is regarding change in Msc. computer, syllabus of operating system module.

Although class syllabus has changed due to changed MSc syllabus, we have made sure that no injustice has been done to non-MSc students, professionals and amateurs. Sir is STILL going to cover “The Design of Unix Operating System” by Maurice J Bach as it has been covered for last 9 years with very negligible omissions. Also no injustice has been done to MSc students because change in class syllabus reflects the changes in MSc Syllabus. If anything, both MSc and non-Msc students are getting few topics extra.

Sir keeps the first week of class as a buffer week so you (the students) can judge if it is a right class for you and sir is an eligible teacher to teach the subject matter.  It is permissible to  cancel the admission with full refund, before the start of second week if you feel otherwise. But you will not be allowed to do so for the reason that you found the syllabus unsuitable. So please read the following information carefully  before taking admission. It explains the class syllabus and philosophical values that we uphold. We will not entertain any cancellation requests regarding syllabus. And we will never compromise with core philosophical values.

So please read about it NOW !

In order to understand the new syllabus and the way it is going to be conducted it is helpful to know what was the old syllabus and how it had been conducted for the last few years.

Old syllabus : Chapter 1 to Chapter 11, from book,“The Design of Unix Operating System”  by Maurice J Bach.

Teaching Division: Chapter 1 to 7 and chapter 9 taught by sir and chapters 8, 10 and 11 taught by class alumni.

Duration: From the month of Dec to the last week of April.
Days: Monday to Wednesday
Timings: from around 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm.

Only in the month of April class was conducted everyday, where sir’s  lectures were scheduled from Monday to Wednesday as usual and alumna’s lecture were scheduled from Thursday to Sunday.
Duration, Days and Timings have not changed, they remain exactly as are mentioned above (including everyday class in April).

The new syllabus is designed to strike a balance between theory and programming (refer to course objectives section of the university syllabus). This is a welcome change. Theory part still consists of Unix internals and book is still “The Design of Unix Operating System” by Maurice J Bach with the elimination of few sections. New syllabus is tabulated below. (Detailed new syllabus us provided at the end of the note)

• Teaching Division :

Sir will cover entire Unix theory (he will not omit sections and chapters omitted in University syllabus) and newly added windows theory in usual class room. For Linux assembly a separate practical session will be arranged in a classroom with adequate infrastructure. Second practical session will cover Windows live kernel debugging by class alumnus.

For Unix/Linux programming part, sir will only give introduction to tool chain at practical session on different GNU/Linux distributions and  on MAC OS. After that you are expected to write your own programs when sir covers corresponding material from Unix internals. HE WILL NOT COVER PROGRAMS LINE by LINE in class. To aid more difficult parts in programming section (Unit 4: Memory management and Unit 5 : Signals)
alumni lectures are arranged in the month of April, but you will have to do most of the work on your own, don’t expect spoon feeding in that regard.

In order to understand why this is so, you have to understand the core values on which the class rests. Class is purely knowledge oriented and not syllabus oriented. Hence more emphasis is put on internals and not on interfaces. We firmly believe that if you know the internals,  what is going on under the hood then you will definitely be able to write your own  programs using those interfaces, provided you are sincere in your hands on. Thus, even in the event of  changed syllabus where emphasis on internals is reduced a bit, we are not going to compromise our core philosophy and also reduce the emphasis on internals. We will continue to cover internals as before.So please bear this all in mind before taking admission to the class. Because we want only those students who are thirsty for knowledge and enjoy learning for the sake of it, not those who put one finger on syllabus and follow it line by line, word by word.

Unix Class Syllabus

Class syllabus is designed in such a way that changes made in Msc Computer syllabus are reflected and at the same time non-MSc. professional and amateurs will continue to get the same syllabus before the change.

Syllabus is divided into four sections :

1. Unix theory
2. Windows theory
3. UNIX/ Linux Programming
4. Basic Introduction to Linux Assembly

Unix Theory:

Textbook : “The Design of Unix Operating System” by Maurice J Bach.

• Chapter 1 : will be covered completely in class
• Chapter 2 : will be covered completely in class(Some sections are omitted in University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus)
• Chapter 3 : will be covered completely in class(Entire chapter excluded in University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus)
• Chapter 4 : will be covered completely in class except bmap algorithm. (Algorithm will be explained in general, not going to cover pseudo-code given in Bach)
• Chapter 5 : will be covered completely in class except link, unlink and mount and few ch— system calls(Half of the chapter is omitted in University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus)
• Chapter 6 : will be covered completely in class (Region algorithms are excluded in University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus)
• Chapter 7 : will be covered up to Signals omitting shell, init in class (Signals and subsequent sections are omitted in University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus)
• Chapter 9 : will be covered completely in class (Entire Chapter is omitted in University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus)
• Chapter 8, 10, 11 : These chapters will be covered by class alumni during the month of April on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Windows Theory :

• Textbook : “Windows Internals”, 5th edition by David Solomon and Mark Russinovitch.
• Chapter 1,2 and 5 (as per University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus, refer Unit 6 of the University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus)
• Practical session of live kernel debugger will also be covered.

Programming using UNIX/Linux interface.
Textbooks:

• Advanced Programming under Unix Environment using W. Richard Stevens
  Linux System Programming by Robert Love.
• This section is listed in University of Pune, MSc Computer Science Syllabus at following places
• Unit 1:  bullet 2,3, introduction will be covered in sir’s practical session. Rest you will have to do on your own.
• Unit 2: bullet 2,3, sir will cover internals only, programs you will have to do on your own.
• Unit 3: bullet 2,3, sir will cover internals only, programs you will have to on your own.
• Unit 4 and 5 : Entire, will be taught by sirs class alumni, still you will have to write your own programs.
• Apart from practical session, sir will cover programming part only once in the class and that will related to programming with device special files because it needs some background of chapter 10 Input Output Subsystem of Bach. Everything else will be covered as mentioned above.

Basic Introduction to Linux Assembly
Textbooks :

• Professional Assembly Language, by Richard Blum
  Guide to Assembly Language Programming in Linux, Sivarama P. Dandamudi, Springer
• Theory part of computer fundamentals will be covered in the introductory lectures in the classroom itself.
• 2 Practical sessions, one for Unix System Programming, GNU Assembly, NASM assembly and one demonstrating Sysinternals Utilities will be conducted at some different classroom equipped with sufficient infrastructure.

Contents of first practical session conducted by sir :

• Introduction to GNU tool chain :
• GNU C compiler (gcc)
• GNU assembler, aka gas (as)
• GNU linker (ld)
• GNU debugger (gdb), debugging with gdb will be demonstrated.
• Introduction to NASM, which is free and standalone assembler.
• Programs :
• NASM : Hello World program in Intel IA-32 assembly using NASM.
• GAS : CPUId program in Intel IA-32 assembly using GAS.
• Apart from assembly, Unix/Linux interface programming introduction will also be covered in the first practical session.

Programs will be demonstrated on MacOS and Fedora, Ubuntu distributions of GNU/Linux operating system. Although there is not any difference between the two as such as far as system call programming goes, sir do not want any excuse later on that “it does not work on my distribution”.

Contents of second practical session conducted by class alumnus

• Windows live kernel debugging and introduction to windows kernel architecture will be covered.

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Fee for UNIX 2011 batch is 6500/-

Admissions are on first come first serve basis.
Venue : 1st floor, Kanade Guruji wada, Next to Kasaba Ganpati Mandir , Pune -411002
For any query Contact : Shrenik Vikam  +91-9011026305 / yoursonytone@gmail.com