This is an undergraduate course on computer operating systems.
(Although this course is for graduate students only! USC undergraduate students must take CS 350 in order to get credit for OS.
If you are an undergraduate student, you cannnot be in this class!)
In addition to exploring concepts such as synchronization, virtual memory,
processes, file systems and virtualization, students will develop elements
of a fairly complete operating system during the course of the semester.
Please note that this class does not use Blackboard.
Everything about this class can be found on the CSCI 402, Fall 2021 class website
(if you see this page again, it means that the class website is under construction).
PREVIEW
My actual CS 402 class web site for Fall 2021 is not ready yet.
Since many students are registering now, I felt that I
should post some important information about CS 402 (especially about rules) so students can know what to expect and register accordingly.
I tend to be a stickler to rules, so there will be no exceptions.
The rules are not just for students. I'm bound by my own written rules and I have to stick to them.
Some students don't understand why I am so strict with rules. Some think that it's just a power trip for me.
It's actually just the opposite!
The reason for sticking to rules is that I have the responsibility of treating all students fairly!
If I apply one rule to one student and don't apply the same rule to another student, I think that's totally unfair.
I think fairness is very important. Without fairness, grades have no meaning.
The only way I know how to be fair is to have rules that are written down clearly and stick to all the written rules.
When you ask me to bend a written rule for you, please understand that you are asking me to be unfair to all other students;
and therefore, I will not bend the rule for you. You see, this actually takes power away from me because I am bound by my own rules
and you can demand that I stick to my own rules!
D-clearance
- I do not sign D-clearances and I will not sign anything to put one student ahead of everyone else.
Please see your adviser to get your D-clearance.
Syllabus
Lectures
- We will be using a flipped classroom model during this semester.
(Although in a regular flipped classroom model, during live lectures, students will be taking quizzes and doing exercises.
Since we have so many programming assignments to do in this class, it would be too much to ask students to do more exercises
during live lectures. I also don't have any quizzes planned.)
Lectures will be pre-recorded into multiple videos (and posted on D2L)
and will be made available before 6pm the day before the scheduled lecture time (and usually, way before that time).
You are expected to have watched the pre-recorded lecture videos beofre you come to the "live" class during the scheduled lecture time.
During a live lecture, since you are supposed to have watched the pre-recorded lecture videos,
I will not repeat what's in a pre-recorded video and I will not be teaching any new materials during a live lecture
because students would complain that this would be too much materials for a 4-unit course.
Instead, I will first go over some administrative information, then I will be answering your questions about lecture material.
If you have questions about programming assignments, I would also be happy to answer your questions as well.
Since live lectures are conducted this way, live lectures are totally optional and
there is no requirement that you come to live lectures at all (although you are still required to view the administrative information)!
If the university requires that everyone to wear a mask in class, you will be required to wear a mask when you are
in the classroom during a live lecture. Since you are not required to come to live lectures, if any student
refuses to put on a mask, I will have to end the live lecture immediately!
Since we may have students taking the class asynchronously, all live lectures will be recorded.
At this point, it's not clear if the live sessions will be Zoom-based or not.
If the live sessions will be running on Zoom, you are welcome to talk to other students over Zoom in chats
and you can use it to recruit teammates for group assignments.
When no students are left in the "room", I will close the Zoom session and end the live class.
Please note that lectures across all sections of CS 402 are required to be synchronized.
Therefore, if live lecture for one section falls on a university holiday while another section does not,
if you are registered in the first section, you are expected to watch the recorded live lecture for the 2nd section.
Please note that you are required to get the administrative information presented during a live lecture
(lecture slides will be posted for this part), but you are not required to watch the Q & A part.
Videos
- All recorded videos will be made available on D2L
(although you may not be able to download any of these videos). Every registered student will be given a D2L account.
Exams
- You must take all the exams in the section for which you are registered.
Each section gets a different exam!
- The dates and times for the final exams are deteremined by the university and there is absolutely
no way to change them for you. If you know that you cannot come to the final exam for a particular
section, do not register for that section because I will not change the date or time of your final exam
or have a separate exam for you.
Audit
- If you are officially auditing this course (i.e., register for this course under the no-grade option), you will get the same course
materials as everyone else. However, you will not be permitted to
form or join a team with students who are taking this course for grades to do the kernel assignments
since your level of commitment is different from students who are taking this course for grades.
- If you want to audit this course unofficially, I will have to say no to you.
Workload
- This class is very demanding and the last programming assignment is
extremely difficult and very very time-consuming. The coverage of this class is very vast.
There is really no time for me to explain every topic to the point where every
student in the class understands everything perfectly because we have to move
along quickly to get you ready for the programming assignments.
So, please do not expect "spoon feeding" in this class and you need
to be prepared to figure things out on your own.
(Lectures are recorded, so you can watch the videos over and over again.)
Of course, you are always welcome to come talk to me about anything related to the course material and programming assignments.
So, you are not completely on your own. You will also be expected to
learn certain things completely on your own.
- This class can also be very rewarding. If you work super hard throughout the entire semester and
implement all the programming assignments yourself,
you will realized that you have learned so much when the course is over.
Class Google Group
- We will use a Google Group for class related communications.
The class Google Group is an important tool. Everyone must be a member of the class Google Group
I will explain how to get on the class Google Group during Lecture 1.
Kernel Teams
- Up to 4 students per team will be permitted but no more. You can form a kernel team with students registered in any section.
Please understand that to be fair to all, I cannot get involved in putting teams together. You are completely on your own to form teams.
If you have issues with your teammates, there is nothing the instructor can or will do. You have to choose your teammates very carefully.
- I strongly recommend that you work with (but not copy code from each other) your potential teammates during the beginning of the semester.
Once you like each other and feel that you can trust each other, you can commit to be in the same team.
I would strongly urge you not to form a team with someone you have never worked with
(unless you are willing to let them have a free ride and do all the work for them).
- You can also work on the kernel assignments by yourself. It's do-able if you are a good programmer who knows C well and are good at debugging.
Otherwise, you need to get good at programming and debugging as quickly as possible!
- Since the class is now completely online, it would be more difficult to meet classmates and work together.
But I think we need to adapt. Also, when you work at a job in the real world, you may have to work with people that you have
never met before and remotely. It's good to acquire the skill now. Learn Zoom and how to host a meeting and
participate in a productive meeting. Also, learn to be courteous and professional at all times, just like in the real business environment.
Please feel free to use the class Google Group to form groups and recruit team members.
Grade Normalization of Programming Assignments
- Since it's pretty much impossible to have every grader grade identically, I will track which student
is graded by which grader. When I calculate your final class grade at the end of the semester,
I will "normalize" each assignment grade according to the average and standard deviation for each grader and
extrapolate your grade according to the overall class average and standard deviation.
For example, if the average for a particular grader is 85 and standard deviation is 10 and you got a score of 87.5
(i.e., average plus a quarter of a standard deviation),
your "normalized" score will be the overall class average plus a quarter of the overall class standard deviation.
This means that if you were graded by an "easy grader", your normalized score may be lower than your original score.
If you were graded by a "harsh grader", your normalized score may be higher than your original score.
This is not a perfect system. But I think it's a big improvement over not normalizing your scores and
it's done this way so that you can have flexibility when you choose which section to enroll.
- This is only done for programming assignments since the pgoramming assignments are identical for every student,
no matter which section you belong. For exams, each section gets a different exam and a separate curve for figuring
out your class letter grade, and therefore, grade normalization is not needed and will not be performed.
Late Registration
- Even though you are on the wait list and there is no guarantee that you will get in,
if you intend to take this class, you are expected to attend every lecture and
submit all assignments on time (i.e., same deadlines as students who are already registered).
So, even if you get in on the last day that you are allowed to register for classes,
you will be expected to turn in all programming assignments by their submission deadelines, even if some deadlines have past, just like everyone else
(see below for deadlines for all assignments).
Preparation
- The prerequisites for this class are (1) CSCI 201L or CSCI 455x, and (2) EE 357 or EE 352L.
But prerequisites are only enforced for undergraduate students. For grad students, they are
turned into "recommended preparation". The way to interprep these recommended preparation is that
you should know how to program in C or C++ and you should know what's inside a processor/CPU and
how it works (i.e., how a CPU executes machine instructions).
Some people mistakenly think that this is an introductory CS class! With the above prerequisites, how can this be an intro CS class?!
- The programming assignments of this class will be very demanding.
You will be required to write C code.
Since C is a proper subset of C++, knowing C++ well would give you enough
background. However, some of the things that available in C++,
such as strings and streams, are not be available in C.
So, you need to know how to do things such as
manipulating C-strings (i.e., null-terminated array of characters)
using functions such as strchr, strrchr, strlen, strcmp, strncpy, etc.
You also need to know how to perform console and file I/O in C
using functions such as read/write, printf/snprintf, fread/fwrite,
fgets/getline, etc.
No other programming language will be accepted.
We will not teach C in this class (since C++ is a prerequisite).
You are expected to pick up C on your own if you are not familiar with it.
You might also want to check out a free online course on C from CodesDope.
(I haven't checked out the contents there. Please feel free to send me feedback.)
One thing I would ask you to avoid is to practice C on a non-Linux system!
You should install 32-bit Ubuntu 16.04 on your laptop or desktop and practice C on it.
If you are not good with programming in C and you want to get prepared for
this class, you can start by implementing some basic data structures and algorithms.
For example, read a file of integers, sort them in a linked list, and sort the
linked list using selection sort, bubble sort, insertion sort, merge sort, and
quick sort is a good place to start. To practice file I/O and string manipulation,
you can change the file of integers to lines of text and parse the lines into fields
(e.g., separated by semi-colons or tabs) then sort the lines based on a particular
field and print the sorted records. You must understand what a memory address
is and what it means to store the address of a data structure into a pointer
(e.g., in forming a linked list). You then need to be able to follow pointers to traverse a linked list.
Please take a look at my review on pointers and make sure you understand everything there
(you can send me e-mail if you have questions).
Finally, you need to learn to use gdb
to examine memory locations and debug your program.
If you have taken CSCI 455x but feel that you need more background in data structures and algorthms,
I would recommend that you take an online class such as this
Data Structures class at coursera.com (I think you have to pay to get the programming assignments, but you can audit the class for free;
also, I have never taken this class, but the syllabus sounds right).
- You must know how to use Unix/Linux. If you are not familiar with Unix/Linux,
you must learn it on your own. We will not teach you how to use Unix/Linux in this class.
If you are not familiar with Unix/Linux, I strongly urge you to read
Unix for the Beginning Mage
(this website is not very stable) before the course starts.
You can also visit UNIX Tutorial for Beginners
or Learn tcsh in Y Minutes.
You should also get familiar with the Unix/Linux development environment (vi/pico/emacs, cc/gcc, make, etc.)
You should install a 32-bit Ubuntu 16.04 on your laptop or desktop as soon as possible
to get good at using it.
You should learn how to use the Terminal program to compile, run, and debug programs.
It's probably a good idea to also learn how to use a text editor (such as vi, emacs, or pico)
to create and edit C program source code and not rely on using IDEs.
If you do not have a personal laptop or desktop that runs Windows or Mac OS X, please contact the instructor as soon as possible.
If you are thinking about purchasing a laptop, for the purpose of this class, I would recommend that you buy
a Windows 10 or Mac laptop that rusn on an Intel/AMD CPU to minimize compatibility issues.
Expectations
- This is a hard class! Don't fall behind! You should try to understand a lecture material by the end of the day the lecture was given.
If there is anything you don't understand about the lecture, please send your question to me. In Lecture 1, I will make a promise to
you that I will reply to every private e-mail messages within 24 hours of your e-mail! This is my commitment to you.
- I should also explain that the textbook is designed to give you details a little bit at a time. Therefore, some concepts
are introduced at a very high level at the beginning of the semesters. Then more and more details will be revealed later. By the end of the
semester, you should know how everything is implemented. It can be frustrating that you won't know exactly how things are done when
your learn a particular concept. You can read ahead if you have to know all the details, but that can be very time-consuming.
- The class is designed so that the programming assignments go with the schedule of lectures. If you don't keep up, you may have a very
difficult time implementing the programming assignments. So, don't fall behind!
- If you are having a difficult time with C programming, you need to figure out which concept in C is confusing you and ask me to clarify the concept.
If you don't know how to program at all, then I don't know how to help you. As I have mentioned above, there are prerequisites for this class
and you need to have the minimum background to take this class.
- Ask me questions! I am here to help you with this class. I cannot help you if you don't ask me questions!
Send me private e-mails or post your questions to the class Google Group
(although my 24-hours reply policy does not apply to posting in the class Google Group).
If I don't get questions from you, I would have to assume that you understand everything.
Important Dates
August 2021
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
Wk 1 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 first day of classes: 8/23
Wk 2 29 30 31
September 2021
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
Wk 2 1 2 3 4
Wk 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 labor day: 9/6, warmup1 due 9/10
Wk 4 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Wk 5 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Wk 6 26 27 28 29 30
October 2021
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
Wk 6 1 2 warmup2 due 10/1
Wk 7 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Wk 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 fall recess: 10/14-10/15
Wk 9 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 kernel1 due 10/22
Wk 10 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 midterm: 10/27
Wk 11 31
November 2021
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
Wk 11 1 2 3 4 5 6
Wk 12 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 kernel2 due 11/12
Wk 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Wk 14 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 thanksgiving: 11/24-11/26
Wk 15 28 29 30
December 2021
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
Wk 15 1 2 3 4 kernel3 due 12/3
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 PM final exam: 12/10 (11am-1pm)
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 DEN final exam: 12/13 (8am-10am)
Please note that:
- The "local DEN section" (section 29945D) and "remote DEN section" (section 29946D)
have the same lecture times (MW starting at 10am), and therefore, they are considered to be the same section and collectively referred to as
the "DEN section".
- "PM section" refers to section 30197D with lecture time on MW starting at 12:00pm.
If you have questions, please e-mail the instructor at <bill.cheng@usc.edu>.
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