The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System (Addison-Wesley UNIX and Open Systems Series)

Highlights:

• Details major changes in process and memory management
• Describes the new extensible and stackable file system interface
• Includes an invaluable chapter on the new network file system
• Updates information on networking and interprocess communication

I wish Kirk had decided to show us more of the joy of programming the kernel. If he had, the book would have been worth at least twice it's current price.


very good, nice, funny, professional kernel hacking   May 22, 2003
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

well, just see the authors,..
in my opinion, the overall text is very good designed, easy to read, and gives you a good overview of the kernel.
although im not a professional kernel hacking, it explains you how the system works, lettign you "grep" through the source, (get 4.3 bsd from ftp://ftp.funet.fi/unix first), very good.


Great book on BSD 4.4, but make sure you've read Bach first   April 23, 2003
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

While this book has been written by some of the best in the UNIX arena, their strong focus on packing a lot of content into these pages at times can prove a burden to the reader.

Reading through the chapters, it appears that the book could have been rendered more readable if a knowledgeable technical editor had put the finishing touches on it.

Nevertheless, even though it takes a bit of time to get used to the different writing styles and differences in quality of several chapters, this books is a well of insights into the internal workings of BSD 4.4 and its derivatives (like Mac OS X).

In order to gain the most from this title, I strongly urge interested readers to already have worked their way through Maurice J. Bach's "The Design of the UNIX Operating System".


Don't get confused by the cover, it's not a comix book :)   September 15, 2001
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Seriously, despite of the funny little daemon on the cover, this book is quite difficult.

First, it's a technical book about the BSD kernel. The only reason why you would want to read it is that you really want to know How It Works(tm). It's all about kernel. The drivers are only slightly touched, the API is touched even less. Rather than that, this book shows you the fields and flags of internal structures and the ways they are handled. Therefore I'd only recommend it to the system programmers and may be to the enthusiastic admins.

Second, certain chapters are written much worse than the others. The language in chapters 4 (Process Management) and 5 (Memory Management) is sort of a tangled making reading a challenge and it's really a pity because these two topics would better be covered best.

Also note that this book does not include sample code AT ALL. All the principles and algorithms are described using plain English and I'd say it's great, because it's much easier to follow, rather than making your way through somebody else's C scribbling.

Anyway, 5 stars, because it gives you 500 pages of pure distilled info. And it's info from the authors of BSD !

I'm definetely looking forward to read this book again and this is one of the books that are worth it.