New edition coming in 2001. This textbook offers students a clear explanation of the fundamental concepts of operating systems. The book is divided into two parts: part one focuses on centralized operating systems with discussions of DOS and UNIX, part two moves to distributed systems and includes an overview of MACH and AMOEBA.
FREE Two-Day Shipping for students on millions of items. Learn more |
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
For software development professionals and computer science students, Modern Operating Systems gives a solid conceptual overview of operating system design, including detailed case studies of Unix/Linux and Windows 2000.
What makes an operating system modern? According to author Andrew Tanenbaum, it is the awareness of high-demand computer applications--primarily in the areas of multimedia, parallel and distributed computing, and security. The development of faster and more advanced hardware has driven progress in software, including enhancements to the operating system. It is one thing to run an old operating system on current hardware, and another to effectively leverage current hardware to best serve modern software applications. If you don't believe it, install Windows 3.0 on a modern PC and try surfing the Internet or burning a CD.
Readers familiar with Tanenbaum's previous text, Operating Systems, know the author is a great proponent of simple design and hands-on experimentation. His earlier book came bundled with the source code for an operating system called Minux, a simple variant of Unix and the platform used by Linus Torvalds to develop Linux. Although this book does not come with any source code, he illustrates many of his points with code fragments (C, usually with Unix system calls).
The first half of Modern Operating Systems focuses on traditional operating systems concepts: processes, deadlocks, memory management, I/O, and file systems. There is nothing groundbreaking in these early chapters, but all topics are well covered, each including sections on current research and a set of student problems. It is enlightening to read Tanenbaum's explanations of the design decisions made by past operating systems gurus, including his view that additional research on the problem of deadlocks is impractical except for "keeping otherwise unemployed graph theorists off the streets."
It is the second half of the book that differentiates itself from older operating systems texts. Here, each chapter describes an element of what constitutes a modern operating system--awareness of multimedia applications, multiple processors, computer networks, and a high level of security. The chapter on multimedia functionality focuses on such features as handling massive files and providing video-on-demand. Included in the discussion on multiprocessor platforms are clustered computers and distributed computing. Finally, the importance of security is discussed--a lively enumeration of the scores of ways operating systems can be vulnerable to attack, from password security to computer viruses and Internet worms.
Included at the end of the book are case studies of two popular operating systems: Unix/Linux and Windows 2000. There is a bias toward the Unix/Linux approach, not surprising given the author's experience and academic bent, but this bias does not detract from Tanenbaum's analysis. Both operating systems are dissected, describing how each implements processes, file systems, memory management, and other operating system fundamentals.
Tanenbaum's mantra is simple, accessible operating system design. Given that modern operating systems have extensive features, he is forced to reconcile physical size with simplicity. Toward this end, he makes frequent references to the Frederick Brooks classic The Mythical Man-Month for wisdom on managing large, complex software development projects. He finds both Windows 2000 and Unix/Linux guilty of being too complicated--with a particular skewering of Windows 2000 and its "mammoth Win32 API." A primary culprit is the attempt to make operating systems more "user-friendly," which Tanenbaum views as an excuse for bloated code. The solution is to have smart people, the smallest possible team, and well-defined interactions between various operating systems components. Future operating system design will benefit if the advice in this book is taken to heart. --Pete Ostenson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Publisher
A presentation of the basics of both distributed and single-processor computer systems.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
OS concepts, vocabulary, and details for professionals,
By
This review is from: Modern Operating Systems (2nd Edition) (GOAL Series) (Hardcover)
Tanenbaum's book is a thorough yet accessible introduction to the design and implementation of modern operating systems. This second edition explains the trade-offs developers must make and shows readers how OS' have matured since the 1960s. Knowledge of programming in C is helpful, especially if the reader wishes to complete the exercises following each chapter. I gave the book five stars for its content, delivery, and humor, all of which helped me learn a difficult subject in an enjoyable manner."Modern Operating Systems, 2nd Ed" (MOS:2E) is very well-written, which may surprise those who suffer while reading other hardcover college texts. The book introduces problems facing developers, then helps the reader understand both simple and complex ways to address these issues. Tanenbaum's style is lively and informative, like the cover of his books. He appears knowledgeable and opinionated -- especially concerning problems with the Windows OS -- but he can back up his assertions. The best features of MOS:2E are found in chapters ten and eleven. Here Tanenbaum illuminates UNIX and Microsoft Windows 2000, respectively, building upon the material found in the previous nine chapters. He gives real reasons why Windows suffers security problems, such as internal complexity, code bloat, and design choices. UNIX is also critically evaluated, but stands up better to Tanenbaum's scrutiny. I don't recommend computer novices read MOS:2E. One needs a certain amount of interest and motivation to digest this material, and Tanenbaum's explanations of some concepts did not seem sufficient. However, after having finished this 900 page tome, I feel more comfortable reading about design issues for the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD scheduler. If you're looking to learn the how and why of operating system design and implementation, I strongly recommend MOS:2E.
32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very informational, but not pragmatic,
By
This review is from: Modern Operating Systems (2nd Edition) (GOAL Series) (Hardcover)
It's a very useful, informative book but I found it more esoteric than it needed to be - I speak from my experience as a computer science student who then went on to write software for a living. Unfortunately, I feel the problems described below plague most popular OS books today, including "Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne".I'd like to break up the review rating into two parts: Content and relevance to subject: 4/5 The book covers almost all aspects of what an operating system needs to to do and so is highly informational, from threads to memory management to I/O - the three most essential (and yet elusive) concepts in today's operating systems. The author does a good job of explaining, at each stage, the various design choices that an OS designer must make e.g. virtual memory - use free lists or bitmaps to do book-keeping of used and free physical memory. Most concepts are explained clearly and as such I found this book to be a good reference on OS design principles. Applicability to real world issues: 2/5 Unfortunately a good reference is not always the best way to understand how things work in practice. The book discusses design choices at each step, but I feel what most computer science students need to learn first is how today's operating systems work - how does the threading scheduler in UNIX work? how does UNIX manage memory, so I as a software engineer can best make use of it? It's great to know all these design pricniples an OS has, but my experience was that when you're at your first job wondering why you're running out of physical memory or why your multi-threaded program keeps crashing, it helps immensely to know well exactly how your OS works, than the myriad choices that it can make. And let's face it - there aren't many OS's in the wold today - the UNIX family and Windows, which is modeled largely on UNIX (albeit not welll and with a few differences). I should point out that the book has a chapter each on UNIX and Winwos at the end, but by the time you reach the end of a 900-page book you're usually out of patience. I have studied from the book by Silberschatz et al. as well, and I have the same complaint with each book - as a student I felt there was a huge disconnect between what the books talk about and knowing the guts of your UNIX or Windows system. Put it simply, I found the books were too "bookish". Unfortunately, I am not aware of any other mainstream OS book that does any better. I would love to see a book that discusses this critical subject in a different (and more enlightening) way - that discusses in detail how, say threads work in UNIX, and then elaborates on how else it could be done. So that at the end of it, you atleast know to make best use of the OS you work with (even if you don't fully understand how to design the next one).
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
my favorite Computer Science book,
By
This review is from: Modern Operating Systems (2nd Edition) (GOAL Series) (Hardcover)
Just finished my bachelor's degree in Computer Science and looking back this is hands down the best, most readable textbook I had in college. It has a proud place on my book shelf. I can't claim to have read the *entire* book (though I was supposed to), but I read quite a lot of it and it was fascinating.Tanenbaum covers the material in depth, but he has a relaxed, entertaining writing style that is engaging and amazingly easy to follow considering the weighty material. There are undoubtedly occasional mistakes, but unlike other books with more obtuse, "I am smarter than you" writing styles, you're actually awake enough to spot the mistakes when they show up. I don't ever remember being baffled by any mistakes. After reading the reviews by this book's few detractors, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and say that I loved it and that every classmate I talked to (including two roommates) wholeheartedly agreed. By the way, I concur with an earlier reviewer in highly encouraging readers to read the case studies of Unix/Linux and Windows 2000 in chapters 10 & 11... fascinating stuff.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
