question.txt

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1. Instructions

- replace any [...] with free text,
  and
- replace the [?] with an X if you have completed that stage,
- replace the [?] with an * if you have attempted that stage, but you know
  it doesn't work completely; document why you think it doesn't work, plus
  what you would do to fix the problem, at the end of the marksheet.

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2. Information

So that we can calibrate and improve the assignment in the future, give us
a rough idea how long (in hours) you spent on it *in total*:

effort : [120] hours

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3. Citation

Clearly it might have an influence on your mark, but the use of third-party
resources is allowed *iff.* it

- hasn't been explicitly prohibited by the assignment description, *and*
- is correctly cited.

Let us know any third-party source code or resources you used (if any) so
it's clear what's your work and what isn't:

[...]

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4. Marking

The following gives a stage-by-stage description of the assignment marking
scheme.  Note this acts as an indicative guideline only, including weights
for each more obvious aspect (e.g., functional correctness); other aspects
outside this list can warrant an increase/decrease in marks, with examples
including hard to quantify features such as style, efficiency, robustness, 
generality, or realism of a solution.  Put another way, identifying then
reasoning about these latter aspects forms part of the assessment, so they
are not (necessarily) detailed explicitly.

    Stage 1 : a baseline kernel
[X]           - pre-emptive multi-tasking                            ( 30%)
[X]           - priority-based scheduler                             ( 10%)

    Stage 2 : closed generalisations and enhancements
[X]           - fork, exec, and exit system calls                    ( 15%)
[X]           - Inter-Process Communication (IPC)                    ( 15%)

    Stage 3 : open   generalisations and enhancements                ( 30%)
[?]           - MMU-based protection and virtualisation
                *OR*
[?]           - LCD screen and PS/2 device drivers and GUI
                *OR*
[X]           - file system based on simplified, emulated disk
                *OR*
[?]           - kernel port to real, physical hardware                     

                                                                     ------
                                                                     (100%)

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5. Documentation

Any other documentation, notes or comments that you think are important or
might be easy to overlook (e.g., a subtle issue or technique in associated
source code) should go here:

[I have implemented a very simple filesystem which is formated as follows:
bitmap for free blocks, inode table, data. In order to correctly format the 
disk for use, make sure to run 'make create-disk' from the included Makefile.disk
file. The main source of inspiration was the ext2 filesystem, with a basic
inode struct implementation. Furthermore the console runs with a few useful 
commands for process and file manipulation. Enter 'help' to see a list of 
commands with their respective arguments. (One thing to note is that 'ls' can 
be used with no args, and works as expected) Also take note of the 'concat'
command which writes a SINGLE word to a file. Whilst it would've been nice to
implement a lexer, I did not think it to be necessary for showing off the 
filesystem. Lastly note that some make variables may need to be changed in order
to run, e.g. LINARO_PATH. Lastly I have added some error handling, however the 
system has not been fully tested so bugs could arise.]

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