Resources

Resources

Sample Exams

• The midterm exam is on Thursday, July 2 from 12:30 - 2:20pm
• Sample Midterm Questions - Password weprevail
  • Solutions - Password weprevail
• The final exam is on Sunday, August 16 from 3:30 - 5:30pm
  • The exam is not cumulative
  • It covers material from the beginning of lecture slides #15 to the end of lecture slides #24
  • This corresponds to the Memory Management, Virtual Memory, and Storage Structure & File Systems sections
• Sample Final Questions - Password weprevail
  • Solutions - Password weprevail

C Programming

• Essential C programming guide (45 pages) from Stanford University
• Programming in C online tutorial
• Book: The C Programming Language, 2nd ed (1988), by Kernighan & Ritchie
  [ SFU Lib (free online) ] [ Buy on Amazon ]
• Suggested C style guide -- you don't need to do all of this; it's a suggestion

Linux Programming

• Brian's YouTube videos on Linux Programming
  • Topics include Linux in a VM, editors, C programming, Makefiles, pthreads/mutex, fork/exec, and Valgrind.
• Linux shell tutorial from Software Carpentry. Great for shell beginners, and covering loops.
• Advanced Linux Programming: Free book covering threads, sockets, pipes, ....
• Threads: POSIX thread library.
• Unix Programming Tools (16 pages) from Stanford University
• Book: Running Linux, 4th edition [ SFU Lib ]
• XEmacs reference card summary of commands (2 pages)
• Free materials to learn linux
• Free book Systems Programming in Unix/Linux [ source ]

Software Setup and Tools

• VM's
  • VirtualBox: Free virtual machine, installed in Linux Lab, runs under most OS's.
  • VM Ware Player: Free virtual machine; use for Linux development under Windows.
  • Brian's YouTube video on VMWare and on configuring VM Ware)
• Ubuntu Linux: Download 64bit ISO to run in VMWare or Virtual Box
• Makefile Guide: Covers the basics of makefiles.
• Free Makefiles book. Good chapter on debugging makefiles.
• VS Code IDE / editor.
  Install in Ubuntu: sudo snap install --classic code

Helpful Topics from CMPT 295

Overall, CMPT 295 gives you a good mental model for what is going on inside your computer system. Below are some of the specific topics from CMPT 295 that are relevant for this course:

• Basics of the binary number system
• Von Neumann architecture and the fetch/decode/execute cycle
• Basics of assembly/machine language instructions
  • You don't need to remember any specific assembly language, just the details of how the generated machine code is executed
• Basics of memory architecture
  • Understanding memory addresses
  • Main memory (RAM)
  • Cache memory and locality of reference