Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2013 11:28:46 -0400 From: George Neville-Neil <gnn@neville-neil.com> To: Gleb Smirnoff <glebius@FreeBSD.org> Cc: freebsd-course@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: started to lecture in Moscow State University Message-ID: <12DC5621-5BC8-4950-8569-528005A81C92@neville-neil.com> In-Reply-To: <20131003132049.GK89219@glebius.int.ru> References: <20131003132049.GK89219@glebius.int.ru>
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--Apple-Mail=_CB21B934-6A14-4CDE-93A8-C10E26CE4140 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Oct 3, 2013, at 9:20 , Gleb Smirnoff <glebius@FreeBSD.org> wrote: > Hi, there! > > The list have been silent for almost a year. Nevertheless, I started > to lecture in MSU. Yesterday, just read an introduction lecture that > explains: > > - where does FreeBSD originate > - where it is used now > - how is it being developed > > The goal of the lection was to advertise the upcoming course, and > just get students interested and curious. > > I expected that above intro would consume 50-60 minutes, but > accidentially ended in 30 minutes. Later on my way home I understood > that I missed a lot I was initially planning to say. Tip for future: > make notes or lecture plan on a sheet of paper. Anyway, I hate long > introductions, so it might be everything went okay. > > I committed my lame intro slides to SVN: > > http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/user/glebius/course/ > > After intro we spent another 30-45 minutes on introductory kernel > hacking. Most of students brought their laptops, so I provided > students with ssh access to a virtual machine, running under bhyve. > > - Reading module(9) we coded a module that just loads and unloads. > - Then I suggested them to print something in kernel. We discussed: > - Why adding printf() breaks compilation of module? > - Why adding #include <stdio.h> would be an incorrect fix? > - Noticed the difference between printf(3) and printf(9). > - Finally printed stuff and found it in dmesg. > - Then I suggested them to do smth bad in kernel mode. And we observed > panic of virtual machine. > > After that rest of the time was spent on answering questions. Why can't > we use libc? Syscalls? No FILE *? etc. > > > How do I see my future work. I plan to split every lecture into two > parts. The first part will be learning some new topic on kernel, with > slides and examples. And the second part would be coding some stuff > together with students, overcoming obstacles and failures together, > explaning why did this or that happened and how it works. > > > What I am lacking right now: > > 1) Experience on lecturing. Alas, can't borrow that from anyone :) > 2) A good facility to provide students with virtual boxes. Bhyve rocks, > but for kernel hacking we've got a serious limitation. When VM > crashes, the console is available only in the host box and it > requires root access. And I don't wont to give students root access > on my personal box. Is there someone local who can give you a box full of VMs? What about the University itself? > 3) Poor TeX skills. I spent too much time to prepare slides in TeX. > I do my best to not flee away from TeX to a WYSIWYG presentation > tool. :) > I haven't checked the slides out, are you using Beamer? That's the right way to go for slides. It's great news that you're working on this and making your work shareable by the rest of us. Best, George --Apple-Mail=_CB21B934-6A14-4CDE-93A8-C10E26CE4140 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org iEYEARECAAYFAlJO3q4ACgkQYdh2wUQKM9KPzwCeP7SgnEiWR1WF3zTETlyMzdtj PRwAoOEpCZn478C5NP6gaK1Mtagg5wlh =eNr9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Apple-Mail=_CB21B934-6A14-4CDE-93A8-C10E26CE4140--
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