Modern Operating Systems (2nd Edition)

Linux Kernel Development (2nd Edition)

Design of the UNIX Operating System (Prentice Hall Software Series)

Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) Environment (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)

Operating System Theory

Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition) (Prentice Hall Software Series)

Format: Hardcover
Author: Andrew S Tanenbaum
ReleaseDate: 04 January, 2006
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Rating:

A great introduction to operating systems
It provides good overviews for basic OS concepts like memory management, file systems, processes, etc. This book is written by Tanenbaum, the main guy behind Minix, which is what Linux was based on. The concepts in this book book are intimately tied to examples of the Minix OS, which is a good thing.

To those who would rather see examples from Linux: Minix is a compact and modular OS, which is why it's a good choice for examples. The book contains the entire source code at the back for easy reference. Yes, the OS is that small. That's a good thing when you're trying to figure out how virtual memory works or what have you. You'd be lost trying to learn this stuff from Linux. Above everything else, the code is ***well-commented*** compared to Linux, a major plus. You won't find any "/* major hack */" comments, either. ;) Minix leaves out all the crap that Microsoft and Linux throw into the kernel that make it unstable in the first place. Learn about the bells and whistles later when you can do the basics.

I encountered two instances where the book wasn't updated to reflect changes in the OS, which were annoying to deal with. Also, I found a spelling or punctuation error about every ten pages, which was annoying for such a pricey book. Overall, however, the book is extremely usable and understandable. It's easy to pick up concepts from this text.

Not the best basis for Operating System design
Now there's nothing wrong with that by default, just keep in mind that any OS you were to write in industry, etc would be way more complex. While this book is good explaining theory and demonstrating it in the author's operating system, MINIX, MINIX is an insanely small OS.

Also, beware, of the 1000+ pages, at least a quarter of that is a print out, line by line, of the MINIX 3 source code. (Approximately 30,000 lines. . . )

Bottom line: Good for basic theory and understanding, but you would need to know much more to write a friendly OS.
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