This course is very hard and have lots of coding involved. If you are not good in C, then it would be very hard to get good grades, because the prof assigns tons of coding homework (e.g. mutexes, semaphores, kernel level programming, etc) in C. The prof isnt very helpful either. If you ask him a question, he will make you think about the answer (but wont give a direct answer). He wants you to think; but unless you have a good understanding of related matters, it is very hard to get to it. If the prof likes you personally (you hangout at his lab, etc), he will be nice and helpful (not too much though). He did use textbook a lot. The prof is ok even if you have an older version of textbook; but since there are so many assignments given, it is recommend to have a newer version of textbook with you. To get a high grade in the class, you need to be really smart and have excellent coding knowledge in C language. If you put the effort, you will learn a lot in this course.