Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition

Linux Kernel Development (2nd Edition)

Building Embedded Linux Systems

The Linux TCP/IP Stack: Networking for Embedded Systems (Networking Series) (Networking Series)

Embedded Linux: Hardware, Software, and Interfacing

Programming

Understanding the Linux Kernel (2nd Edition)

Format: Paperback
Author: Daniel P. Bovet
ReleaseDate: December, 2002
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Rating:

Real-World OS Nuts and Bolts
I have seen many OS texts, and this one is unique in that it does not attempt to teach theory, or academic examples. This book doesn't just talk about Linux; it talks about how a modern OS sitting on a modern architecture functions, in real detail. Want to understand scheduling, interrupts, file system abstractions, address spaces? Read this. Even if you don't use or care about Linux particularly. It will demystify these critical topics, which you can then apply to whatever platform or code you're working with, especially if you work with kernel or related components.

I am a professional software developer who works in drivers and OS subsystems. Although I have some exposure to various Unix flavors, I don't use any of them regularly-- I have most exposure to the NT architecture. This book has been invaluable in shoring up my fundamentals. The Windows book that most closely resembles this is Windows Internals from MS Press, which is a great book but doesn't (and cannot) delve too far into actual internal structures.

Note, though, that this book does not aim to teach you all this good generalist stuff-- it only does that by accident. It will gloss over the intro material in some cases to get into the code, which works for the explicit charter of the text (Linux kernel specifics), but might require the reader cross-referencing with an OS text.

The only Linux kernel book you need
If you are like me, who start with code, this is the only book you need to learn about linux kernel and to use it as a quick reference. There are two type of programmers, those who start with papers and those who start with code.

mixed, other books are better


Some of the chapters and explanations I liked, others I felt were dry and lacking. I've been reading kernel books for nearly 20 years -- this is not recommended. The code examples seem to run through a non-deterministic preprocessor -- the code is supposed to describe 2. 4. 18, but the code snippets don't quite match the actual code (while generally working the same way, the algorithms/loop structure are often rewritten and the macros are sometimes expanded). I find it very useful when books comment on actual code examples, this is "kinda massaged code" -- I found it very frustrating when I actually looked at the kernel tree when they had snippets in the book.

I often found it necessary to look at the actual code to give more context (but the code rarely matched verbatim -- very strange). And when they did rewrite algorithms, I found the kernel 2. 4. 18 source to be MORE lucid.

The explanations without code were adequate, and I found some to be illuminating. Perhaps since the book has two authors, different authors wrote different chapters? (I liked some chapters and didn't like others).

If you want a general understanding of how kernels work, Andy Tanenbaum's "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation" where he elaborates on Minix is very useful -- with a complete Minix system (Minix is more of a teaching tool, which it does well, Linus looked at lMinix and wanted a more useful system, hence Linux).

I found Robert Love's "Linux Kernel Development" very good (I read the 1st edition, still need to read the second edtion). And Linux Device Drivers (Corbet and Rubini) is very good and has excellent examples (but the examples may need some work to build on a current kernel -- had this problem with the 2nd edition).