Course information
- Course syllabus file
- Course study guide file
- Course administration slides file
Teaching · AOS · 2025-2026
Advanced Operating Systems
Advanced Operating Systems combines operating-system theory with practical work on concurrency, Linux kernels, virtualization, embedded systems, and system-level programming.
- Academic year
- 2025/2026
- Institution
- Politecnico di Milano
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria course instructor Federico Terraneo additional instructor
Reference
Course resources
Course projects and research opportunities
Exam preparation
- Archive of previous exams collection
- Original exam versions with blanks collection
- Part A cheatsheet — C++ and RTOS APIs file
- Part B cheatsheet — Linux APIs file
Teaching material
- Introduction slides file
- Introduction notes file
- Processes and scheduling slides file
- Processes and scheduling notes file
- Kernel modules and debugging laboratory file
- Kernel concurrency slides file
- Kernel concurrency notes file
- Kernel concurrency laboratory file
- Virtual memory slides file
- Virtual memory notes file
- Kernel memory laboratory file
- Device I/O slides file
- Device I/O notes file
- Device I/O laboratory file
- Boot and firmware slides file
- Boot and firmware notes file
- System virtualization slides file
- System virtualization notes file
- Introduction to C++ slides file
- C++ and RTOS threads slides file
- Embedded systems and RTOS slides file
- Microcontroller OS exercises file
Supplementary tutorials and prerequisites
Laboratories
Useful links
- Course instructor Webex room
- Vittorio Zaccaria research group
- POuL Git crash course
- System programming in Linux — Git recording
- System programming in Linux — GCC and Make recording
- Introduction to C++ recording 1
- Introduction to C++ recording 2
- Introduction to C++ recording 3
- Embedded Systems course introduction
- Linux kernel source used in class
- Seminar Webex room
Calendar
Schedule
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Introduction and operating-system patterns
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Kernel overview, tasks, wait queues, and scheduling
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Scheduling and load balancing
- Location
- Online (Webex)
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Kernel modules and debugging
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Kernel debugging
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
MCS locks, spinlocks, and lockdep
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
RCU, CAS, and the ABA problem
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Linux kernel memory model
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Kernel lists, atomic access, and RCU
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Kernel lists, atomic access, RCU, and memory model
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
VMAs, kmalloc, vmalloc, and slab allocation
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Kernel memory allocation and user/kernel data movement
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
MMIO, port I/O, and interrupts
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
MMIO, port I/O, interrupts, and UART driver
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Block devices
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Class cancelled
- Location
- Not applicable
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
STMicroelectronics seminar
- Location
- Online (Webex)
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Linux device model and PCIe
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
ACPI and device trees
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
UEFI and embedded Linux with U-Boot
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
System virtualization
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 06:00 PM– 07:00 PM
Secure Boot and Secure Storage — Security Pattern seminar
- Location
- Online (Webex)
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
System virtualization
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Project presentations
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Vittorio Zaccaria
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Microcontroller OS programming
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Federico Terraneo
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Class cancelled — Immaculate Conception holiday
- Location
- Not applicable
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Microcontroller OS programming
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Federico Terraneo
- 06:00 PM– 07:00 PM
Exploiting and mitigating memory corruption in the Linux kernel
- Location
- Online (Webex)
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Microcontroller OS programming
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Federico Terraneo
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Microcontroller OS programming
- Location
- 25.S.2
- Staff
- Federico Terraneo
- 12:15 PM– 02:15 PM
Microcontroller OS programming
- Location
- 21.S.1
- Staff
- Federico Terraneo
Archive