Berkeley’s CS 162: Operating Systems and Systems Programming

Berkeley's CS 162: Operating Systems and Systems Programming is a course that teaches students how to design and implement operating systems, with a focus on systems programming. The course is designed to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the core concepts of operating systems and how they are implemented in practice. The course is divided into several modules that cover different aspects of operating systems and systems programming. The first module introduces students to the basics of operating systems, including the different components of an operating system, the kernel, and the file system. Students learn about system calls, process management, and memory management, as well as how to write basic programs that interact with the operating system. In the second module, students delve deeper into operating system design and implementation, with a focus on concurrency and synchronization. Topics covered in this module include processes and threads, locks and semaphores, and interprocess communication. The third module covers file systems in more detail, including file system design and implementation, file system organization, and file system performance. Students learn about the different types of file systems, including FAT, NTFS, and ext4, and how they are used in practice. The fourth module covers networking and distributed systems, including network protocols, sockets programming, and distributed computing. Students learn how to write basic network programs, how to use sockets to communicate over a network, and how to design and implement distributed systems. Throughout the course, students work on programming assignments that reinforce the concepts learned in class. These assignments include implementing a basic operating system, writing a file system, and designing and implementing a distributed system. Overall, Berkeley's CS 162: Operating Systems and Systems Programming is an intensive and challenging course that provides students with a thorough understanding of operating systems and systems programming. Students who complete the course will be well-prepared for careers in systems programming, operating system development, and distributed systems.