CMSC 357 Computer Systems Semester course; 3 lecture and 2 laboratory hours (delivered online, face-to-face or hybrid). 4 credits. Prerequisite: CMSC 304 with a minimum grade of C. Topics include Linux essentials; system programming in C; organization of programs/data; dynamic memory; pointers; types, structs and unions; strings; bit/byte operations; memory management; shell programming; input/output, including file handling; debugging; signals; program concurrency using forks and threads; experiments on program performance and optimization techniques.