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 summer session.
Please note that this class does not use Blackboard.
Everything about this class can be found on the CSCI 402, Summer 2023 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 Summer 2023 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.
- I heard that there is a Viterbi policy that non-CS masters students cannot take a CS class during their first
year at USC. I do not know if this rule is in effect or if this rule is applicable to you during the
summer. Please understand that I will not waive this rule for anyone if this rule is in effect.
Please see your adviser if you want to know if this rule applies to you this summer.
- If you are on the wait list and is concerned about whether you will eventually get your D-clearance,
I can only suggest that you wait it out.
Typically, some students would drop the course before the drop deadline. So, if you stay on the wait list,
there is a reasonable chance that you will get in (although I cannot make any guarantees).
According to the schedule of classes, the last day to add this course is 6/1/2023.
Please also see your responsibility if you register late for this course.
Syllabus
Lectures
- We will be using a flipped classroom model during this summer session.
(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 at this time, but I'm thinking about having some quizzes to encourage
students to watch the lecture videos on schedule.)
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.
You are expected to watch the lecture video beofre you come to the "live" class during the scheduled lecture time.
During a live lecture, I will go over administrative materials, have a quick recap of what's in the pre-recorded lecture videos,
and open up the class for discussions. You are also welcome to ask me questions about programming assignments during live lectures.
The reason we are using this format is that students in this class have very diverse backgrounds
(usually, over 50% of the students are in the MS in Computer Science for Scientists and Engineers program)
and many students would need individualized help to understand the course material and to get going with the programming assignments.
With the flipped format, I can give attention to students who need the individual and specific help.
Please take advantage of this format and ask me questions about pre-recorded lecture and discussion videos or
if you have any question about programming assignments and do this as early and as often as possible.
Videos
- All recorded videos will be made available on D2L
(although you cannot download any of these videos). Every registered student will be given a D2L account.
Computer Equiptment
- All programming assignments must run on a "standard" 32-bit Ubuntu 16.04 system
(our kernel assignments only works on a 32-bit Ubuntu 16.04 system).
The best way to run Ubuntu 16.04 is to
install it inside a virtual machine. The virtual machine of choice for this class is Oracle's VirtualBox.
It's free and it runs on both Windows and Mac OS X. You should have a desktop/laptop that runs Windows
or Mac OS X (we do not recommend using a machine that runs the ChromeOS or another Linux OS) and it should have at least 4GB of
memory and its CPU should be Intel Core i3 or faster.
If you do not have a machine that meets the requirement, please contact the instructor as early as possible to figure out your options.
- Since it may be the case that Oracle's VirtualBox cannot run on Apple's M1 CPU,
if the only machine you have access to is a laptop/desktop running on the M1 CPU, you need to contact the instructor as early as possible to figure out your options.
Please also read this web page to understand your options.
Option (1) there would be the best solution for this class, if it's available to you.
Option (2) is also pretty good and that's available to everyone.
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.
(Although lectures and discussion sections 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 mostly on your own.
- Some students mistakenly think that this is a code hacking class and if you spend a lot of time hacking, you can get your programming assignments to work.
That's really the wrong way to go about it. The programming assignments are actually thinking-type assignments. You need to understand all the materials covered
in lectures and discussion sections first, then think very carefully and write code based on your understanding of all the material!
This way, you won't spend all your time coding and chasing bugs.
- This class can also be very rewarding. If you work super hard for 11 weeks and
implement all the programming assignments yourself,
you will realized that you have learned so much when the course is over.
Students with a Full-time Job
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 summer session.
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!
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 keep up with every lecture and
submit all assignments on time (i.e., same deadlines as students who are already registered).
So, even if you get registered after warmup #1 deadline, you will still be expected to turn in
warmup #1 by the end of Tuesday of the 3rd week of the summer session! For all the assignment submission dates,
please see the bottom of this web page.
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 (kernel 3 will be extremely difficult and very very time-consuming).
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 10/11 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.
You can also come to a live lecture and ask me questions in class or come to office hours. Don't wait too long!
- 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
May 2023
Su Mo Tu | We Th Fr Sa
Wk 1 - - - | 17 18 19 20 first day of classes for USC summer session: 5/17, first lecture: 5/18
Wk 2 21 22 23 | 24 25 26 27
Wk 3 28 29 30 | 31 warmup1 due: 5/30
June 2023
Su Mo Tu | We Th Fr Sa
Wk 3 | 1 2 3
Wk 4 4 5 6 | 7 8 9 10
Wk 5 11 12 13 | 14 15 16 17 warmup2 due: 6/13
Wk 6 18 19 20 | 21 22 23 24
Wk 7 25 26 27 | 28 29 30 kernel1 due: 6/27
July 2023
Su Mo Tu | We Th Fr Sa
Wk 7 | 1
Wk 8 2 3 4 | 5 6 7 8 independence day: 7/4, midterm: 7/6
Wk 9 9 10 11 | 12 13 14 15 kernel2 due: 7/11
Wk 10 16 17 18 | 19 20 21 22
Wk 11 23 24 25 | 26 27 28 29 kernel3 due: 7/27
Wk 12 30 31 |
August 2023
Su Mo Tu | We Th Fr Sa
Wk 12 1 | - - - - final exam 8/1
If you have questions, please e-mail me at <bill.cheng@usc.edu>.
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