Operating System Concepts (7th Edition) (Hardcover)

by Abraham Silberschatz (Author), Peter Baer Galvin (Author), Greg Gagne (Author) "An operating system is a program that manages the computer hardware..." (more)
Key Phrases: outer page table, pbg staff, summation thread, Microsoft Windows, Intel Pentium, Sun Microsystems (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Another defining moment in the evolution of operating systems
Small footprint operating systems, such as those driving the handheld devices that the baby dinosaurs are using on the cover, are just one of the cutting-edge applications you'll find in Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne's Operating System Concepts, Seventh Edition.
By staying current, remaining relevant, and adapting to emerging course needs, this market-leading text has continued to define the operating systems course. This Seventh Edition not only presents the latest and most relevant systems, it also digs deeper to uncover those fundamental concepts that have remained constant throughout the evolution of today's operation systems. With this strong conceptual foundation in place, students can more easily understand the details related to specific systems.
New Adaptations
* Increased coverage of user perspective in Chapter 1.
* Increased coverage of OS design throughout.
* A new chapter on real-time and embedded systems (Chapter 19).
* A new chapter on multimedia (Chapter 20).
* Additional coverage of security and protection.
* Additional coverage of distributed programming.
* New exercises at the end of each chapter.
* New programming exercises and projects at the end of each chapter.
* New student-focused pedagogy and a new two-color design to enhance the learning process.

From the Back Cover
Another defining moment in the evolution of operating systems

Small footprint operating systems, such as those driving the handheld devices that the baby dinosaurs are using on the cover, are just one of the cutting-edge applications you’ll find in Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne’s Operating System Concepts, Seventh Edition. 

By staying current, remaining relevant, and adapting to emerging course needs, this market-leading text has continued to define the operating systems course. This Seventh Edition not only presents the latest and most relevant systems, it also digs deeper to uncover those fundamental concepts that have remained constant throughout the evolution of today’s operation systems. With this strong conceptual foundation in place, students can more easily understand the details related to specific systems.

New Adaptations

• Increased coverage of user perspective in Chapter 1.
• Increased coverage of OS design throughout.
• A new chapter on real-time and embedded systems (Chapter 19).
• A new chapter on multimedia (Chapter 20).
• Additional coverage of security and protection.
• Additional coverage of distributed programming.
• New exercises at the end of each chapter.
• New programming exercises and projects at the end of each chapter.
• New student-focused pedagogy and a new two-color design to enhance the learning process.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 944 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 7 edition (December 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471694665
• ISBN-13: 978-0471694663
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #77,711 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good high level view of how an OS works, December 8, 2005

By	Comp Sc. Instructor "CSI" (TX, US) - See all my reviews

Definetely targeted towards the sophomore/Junior level students. This book goes into generic concepts used by most operating systems - i.e., what happens when a program is loaded into memory? How do processes make system calls to the kernel, how is deadlock among several programs competing for the same resources resolved, what is the characteristics of real-time operating systems etc.

I have adopted this book for teaching the operating systems course. I find that students, in general, appreciate this book as it is very readable. I believe a good text book should have the following qualities: It should be light enough to read it in bed, the fonts should be large enough to not give a headache after an hour of reading, should be written in clear lucid style with plenty of figures and should have decent binding. I believe this book qualifies in all those aspects.

However, I do have one unpleasant comment. I hate it when authors keep coming out with new editions with just small delta changes - forcing students to buy high priced editions because some professors could care less about the cost of books to students (after all, we profs get them for free). The 7th edition is not a whole lot different than the 6th edition (about 2 or 3 new chapters included in the 7th edition). Considering that you can buy a used 6th edition for half the price of a new 7th edition, I recommended my students to go with the 6th edition instead and chose to just teach them some of the additional materials from the 7th edition.

What I would have liked to see in this book - greater detail (perhaps with some psuedocode) on the workings of the kernel and how programs can take advantage of it (I guess I am thinking along the lines of Steven's UNIX programming book).

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New and Updated Seventh Edition, March 3, 2005

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This new seventh edition of the book has been brought up to date to include recent developments in operating systems such as Windows XP and the new small footprint operating systems that work in hand held devices such as the Palm and in cell phones. In addition the text now corresponds to the suggestions from Computing Curricula 2001 for teaching operating systems.

Most of the book is on general purpose operating systems such as Linux and those from Microsoft. But at the end of the book there are chapters on other types of operating such as Real Time Operating Systems and MultiMedia OS's.

Finally there are some chapters which the authors call case studies. In these, one chapter goes into a detailed discussion of Linux, another chapter covers Windows XP. Chapter 23 covers several early operating systems that helped to define the features that make up modern os's. These include: Atlas, XDX-940, THE, RC 4000, CTSS, MULTICS, OS/360, and MACH, along with brief mentions of several others.

Note that this not a book on how to use operating systems, this is a book on how operating systems are designed. It is intended for upper level undergraduate students or first year graduate students.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Book on the Concepts Underlying Operating Systems, July 8, 2005

By	David A. Lessnau (Niceville, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

From the 2nd paragraph of the preface, the authors:

"...wrote this book as a text for an introductory course in operating systems at the junior or senior undergraduate level or at the first-year graduate level.... It provides a clear description of the concepts that underlie operating systems. As prerequisites, we assume that the reader is familiar with basic data structures, computer organization, and a high-level language, such as C."

I'd say that's an excellent synopsis of this book. It's not a book on how to use or how to program operating systems. It's a book on the CONCEPTS underlying them. It's not as difficult to get through, but it's somewhat like Patterson's & Hennessy's "Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface" <ASIN:1558606041>. Where that book looks at how computers work from the point of view of electrons whizzing by on the silicon, this book looks at how they work from the point of view of the operating system. Personally, I'd put the target educational level at no lower than the senior undergraduate level just because it'd probably be very difficult for a junior to have the necessary prerequisites. But, regardless, it's a well-written book that covers the topic decently. I rate it at 4 stars out of 5.

As an aside, Florida State University (FSU) uses this book in their COP 4610 course: "Operating Systems & Concurrent Programming."