Design and implementation of a swapper for the MINIX operating system

Abstract

The University of Vermont does not offer a course which provides practical experience working with the internals of operating systems. To remedy this, an independent study course was undertaken during the Spring 1989 semester which involved working with the internals of a real operating system. The goal of the project was to design and implement a major component of an operating system known as the swapper.The basis for the project was the MINIX operating system, which is a message--passing operating system that runs on microcomputers and whose user interface mimics Version 7 UNIX². The structure, algorithms, and implementation of a swapper will be analyzed in detail. Finally, the practical value of the research experience is discussed.

References

1. [1] A.S. Tanenbaum, Operating Systems : Design and Implementation. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1987.
2. [2] M.J. Bach, The Design of the UNIX Operating System. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1986.
3. [3] S.J. Leffler, M.K. McKusick, M.J. Karels and J.S. Quaterman, The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1989.

Index Terms

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

      • Model curricula

• Software and its engineering

  • Software organization and properties

    • Contextual software domains

      • Operating systems