CS374 :: Sp26 :: Operating Systems I

CS 374 :: Spring 2026 :: Operating Systems I

Textbooks

No required textbook. Reading materials will be provided on the course website and/or distributed in class. If you lack the basics in system programming, please refer to this short online course:

[MIT] The Missing Semester of Your CS Education [Link]

Prerequisites

CS 261 (261H) and (CS 271 or ECE 271)
A minimum grade of C is required in those courses.

CS 261 (261H): Data Structures
CS 271: Computer Architecture and Assembly Language
ECE 271: Digital Logic Design

Grading

Your final grade for this course will be based on the following scheme:

60%: 5 Online Programming Assignments
40%: 4 Online Mid-term Quizzes
Up to 10%: Extra point opportunities

+2%: Rust programming

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Explain why modern operating systems need to support multiple programs running at once, and describe how they are structured.
Use system calls correctly and confidently in your programs.
Understand the difference between processes and threads, and choose the right abstraction for a given problem.
Identify and fix problems that arise when multiple programs run concurrently.
Explain how files work and how programs perform I/O at the system level.
Compare different methods for inter-process communication and choose the appropriate one.
Write system-level programs that apply the concepts and techniques covered in this course.

Announcements

[Active] 04/13/26: Monday session will be on Zoom.
[Active] 03/30/26: Welcome to CS374: OS I! Please check the course information on Canvas

Schedule

*[Note] This is a tentative outline; the lecture contents or the deadlines can change depending on progress.

Date	Topics	Notes	Supplementary Materials
Overview and Motivation
Mon. 03/30	Intro to Operating Systems	[Slides]
Wed. 04/01	Preliminaries	[Slides]	[Reading] The Missing Semester of Your CS Education
Part I: OS Fundamentals
Mon. 04/06	Processes and Threads	[Slides]	[Due] Syllabus Quiz
Wed. 04/08	Context Switching	[Slides]
Mon. 04/13	Virtual Memory [Online]	[Slides]	[Due] Programming Assignment I [Reading] Thrashing
Wed. 04/15	Scheduling (Basics)	[Slides]	[Reading] Process scheduling [Reading] Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS)
Part II: Files and File System Basics
Mon. 04/20	Files	[Slides]	[Due] Midterm Quiz I [Reading] The UNIX Time-sharing System
Wed. 04/22	I/O	[Slides]
Mon. 04/27	Filesystem Internals	[Slides]	[Due] Programming Assignment II [OS Internals] Linux file descriptor table [OS Internals] Linux source code for fopen()
Part III: IPC, RPC, and Networking
Wed. 04/29	Signals and PIPEs	[Slides]	[Due] Midterm Quiz II
Mon. 05/04	Sockets	[Slides]
Wed. 05/06	Networking I	[Slides]	[Reading] IPv4 vs. IPv6 [Reading] HTTPS (explained IPv6) [Reading] Man-in-the-Middle attack [Reading] Apache or NGINX
Mon. 05/11	Networking II [SH's Conference Travel]	[Slides]	(Async) Recorded materials on Canvas
Part IV: Synchronization
Wed. 05/13	Synchronization I	[Slides]	[Due] Midterm Quiz III [Due] Programming Assignment III [Reading] Resource contention
Mon. 05/18	Deadlock [SH's Conference Travel]	[Slides]	(Async) Recorded materials on Canvas
Wed. 05/20	Synchronization II [SH's Conference Travel]	[Slides]	(Async) Recorded materials on Canvas [Reading] Race condition [Reading] Google's Syzkaller
Mon. 05/25	Memorial Day	[No lecture]
Wed. 05/27	Synchronization III	[Slides]	[Due] Programming Assignment IV [Tools/Tips] Semaphore Man Page [Reading] Linearizability
Part V: Safe Operating Systems
Mon. 06/01	Rust in Linux Kernel	[Slides]	[Reading] Paper: Security of GitHub's Code Copilot [Reading] Rust in the Linux Kernel
Wed. 06/03	Rowhammer and Side-channels	[Slides]	[Reading] PrisonBreak: Jailbreaking LLMs with at Most 25 Targeted Bit-flips
Finals Week (06/08 - 06/12): Please do your late submissions for programming assignments by 06/12.
Mon. 06/08	-		[Due] Midterm Quiz IV
Fri. 06/12	-		[Due] Programming Assignment V [Due: late submissions] Programming Assignment I-V