CS146

This class is about Unix, which is a command-line driven OS. If you want a GUI, you're in the wrong course. Suitably, then, the web page for this class looks very boring. To understand why, Follow the below link:

Read this article by one of the inventors of Unix.

People

Prof: Wayne Hayes (whayes@uci.edu).
TA: Juan Sebastian Carrillo (jscarri1@uci.edu).
Reader: (None yet).

Computing Environment

Note that the programming assignments will be graded based on whether they work on an ICS Openlab machine. That means you can write the code on any Unix/Linux machine you want, but you must submit it---and it will be graded---on an ICS Linux Openlab machine. If your code works on some random machine you used to develop it but not on an openlab machine, you may get zero. You can learn more about openlab here; BE SURE TO ACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT, since you need it to do Assignment #1. If you already have access to a Unix/Linux machine, use "ssh" to get to openlab. If you're using Windows, then a popular program to remotely log in to a Unix machine is call PUTTY; another is MobaXterm, which allows a limited amount of graphical interaction.

All work must be submitted on the command line of an ICS Openlab machine using the command "/home/cs146/bin/submit". Run that command with no arguments to get help.

Syllabus

Course Textbook

I would prefer to be using The Unix Programming Environment by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike, but unfortunately it's out of print. There exist PDFs of it online, but I'm not sure of the copyright status of such PDFs. Thus, as a half-decent surrogate, the official text is legally available as a free PDF (also available is the old First Edition), but I won't be referring to it much. If my lectures aren't enough, I encourage you to consult either of the above books, or any of the ones below.

Lectures (PDF--be prepared to add your own markups)

Office Hours: to be negotiated with class based on their schedules

Assignments

Assignment 1 as text and PDF. Due first lecture of Week 2.
Assignment 2 as text. Due first lecture of Week 3 (extended to Wednesday 11:59pm of Week 3).
Assignment 3 as text. Due first lecture of Week 5 (extended to Thursday 11:59pm of Week 5).
Sample midterm from 2016
Assignment 4 as text. Due last lecture of Week 7.
For Assigment 5, you have some options. It's due end-of-day on the last day of exam week. As for the options, you can either do the "stock" one that includes some complex awk scripting, OR you can pick one of the following:
- awk can't handle signals at the moment. Add signal handling to GNU awk by allowing a named user function (in awk) to be called whenever a signal is recieved.
- Change bash so it doesn't barf when a script is in DOS format with carriage returns (this one and the one above it are probably easy.. you should do both if you choose either)
- Implement a system for processing a set of "jobs" in parallel, using either the Work Crew, OR the Client/Server model
  
  First page of the exam