Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition) [Hardcover]

Andrew S Tanenbaum (Author), Albert S Woodhull (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0131429388 | ISBN-13: 978-0131429383 | Edition: 3

Operating Systems Design and Implementation, 3e , is ideal for introductory courses on computer operating systems. Written by the creator of Minux, professional programmers will now have the most up-to-date tutorial and reference available today.

 

Revised to address the latest version of MINIX (MINIX 3), this streamlined, simplified new edition remains the only operating systems text to first explain relevant principles, then demonstrate their applications using a Unix-like operating system as a detailed example. It has been especially designed for high reliability, for use in embedded systems, and for ease of teaching.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book offers a unique and carefully integrated combination of principles and practice. While the usual principles are covered in detail, the book also describes a small, but real UNIX-like operating system: MINIX. It shows how it works and illustrates the principles behind it. By using MINIX, students learn principles and then can apply them in hands-on system design projects. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

“The presentation is excellent. The book should be on the desk of any serious student of operating systems.”--Dr. Samuel Kohn, Thomas Edison State College

 

“I would give the authors very high grades for their writing style. Topics are explained in a clear and understandable manner. Presentations are well organized and they flow in logical fashion. The book provides the right depth and breadth of explanations with the appropriate amount of rigor and abstraction.” --Gojko Babic, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Ohio State University

 

The definitive, up-to-date introduction to operating systems:

Core principles plus hands-on examples with the new MINIX 3 operating system

 

The world’s best-selling introductory operating systems text has been thoroughly updated to reflect the latest advances in OS design and implementation. Offering an optimal balance of theory and practice, Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, Third Edition remains the best resource for anyone seeking a deep understanding of how operating systems work.

 

This edition includes MINIX 3, more compact, more reliable, better suited for embedded applications – and, above all, even easier to teach and learn from. Using MINIX, the authors introduce virtually every core concept needed to construct a working OS: system calls, processes, IPC, scheduling, I/O, deadlocks, memory management, threads, file systems, security, and more. 

 

NEW TO THIS EDITION

 

·   Newly-released, significantly-improved MINIX 3 operating system on CD-ROM: giving students  hands-on experience in  modifying and rebuilding a contemporary operating system

·   Expanded and reorganized coverage of processes and communication

·   Revised and enhanced coverage of CPU scheduling, deadlocks, file system reliability, and security

·   Includes more than 150 end of chapter problems

 

·   ABOUT THE AUTHORS

 

Andrew S. Tanenbaum has an S.B. degree from M.I.T. and a Ph. D. from the University of California at Berkeley.  He is currently a Professor of Computer Science and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where, for more than 30 years, he has taught operating systems, computer organization, and networking to thousands of students. Professor Tanenbaum is the winner of the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the ACM/SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education. 

 

Albert S. Woodhull is Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science and Biology at the School of Natural Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. He also served until recently as computer system administrator for the Department of Biology in the School of Natural Science and Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. He holds an S.B. degree from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. the University of Washington. Supported by a Fulbright grant, he has taught at the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua. 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1080 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 3 edition (January 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131429388
• ISBN-13: 978-0131429383
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 1.7 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > APIs & Operating Environments > Operating Systems Theory

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best OS books out there November 3, 1999

By Geogia Tech Student

Format:Hardcover

First off, don't be fooled by people who claim this to be an "easy read". It isn't ... reading the entire book will take weeks, as the text is packed with information, not to mention exercises following each section. That being said, I highly recommend the book. It provides a thorough introduction to operating systems basics, from scheduling to terminals, along with source code. Don't expect to absorb it all at once!

47 of 54 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A great introduction to operating systems March 30, 2006

By W. Faught

Format:Hardcover

This book is written by Tanenbaum, the main guy behind Minix, which is what Linux was based on. It provides good overviews for basic OS concepts like memory management, file systems, processes, etc. 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.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent text book, well written and informative February 10, 2003

By sir_isaac_newton

Format:Hardcover

This was the text for an OS course that I took for my Masters. We had to implement 11 significant OS features for Minix (e.g. floppy disk cache, VGA driver, interprocess communication server,...) -- bugs were unacceptable (i.e. fail), as OSs must work. This class was 4 times more work that an other class I took for my Masters but I learned so much. I was already a very experienced Unix programmer when I took this, so I found it facinating to finally see what was under the hood (Minix/Unix is surprisingly small an compact -- very elegant). Tanenbaum is a real authority on the subject of operating systems and has a very engaging style. Probably the best computer science text book that I have read (I read this cover to cover, not just scanning but really reading). There is room for improvement though: the format could benefit from being updated, I had to use a lot of high-lighter. Clearer separation and indexing of key theories and sections would help. The OS basics are still relevant today (and could perhaps benefit from some expansion/clarification). I believe Tanenbaum has brought out new books since that go into some more contemporary / more advance areas.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Historically Significant, Simply Complex February 15, 2001

By A. Scudiero

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The operating system for this book, Minix, is the ancestor to the now wildly popular linux. The idea behind this book is incredible, step through some of the most important areas of Operating Systems using an open source OS which was intentionally kept very simple.

Rather than a survey of all the capabilities of operating systems which we see in many other books, this book focuses in on five of the core concepts. It discusses design tradeoffs involved in selecting an implementation for any one area of an operating system and is a very respectable book from the man who wrote the Operating System in question. A Good book if you are interested in the deeper concepts of OS.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Should be called 'Unix Operating Systems'? October 15, 2000

By Adam Rutkowski

Format:Hardcover

Although this book covers a great deal of topics regarding operating system designing, it is largely a book about the Unix OS, and its derivatives, particularly Minix. This is not at all bad, since it does cover a lot of general topics, but for a person interested in MS-DOS/Windows (or any other non-Unix OS for that matter), it can get boring.

The most important point to make about this book is: If you don't plan on messing around with the Minix source, you are probably wasting your money. This book may be 900+ pages, but the back 400 pages are a (reduced) listing of the Minix source code, and a lot of the main text is special sections that walk through this source code, describing how it works. This means that, in the end, you have about 250 pages of actual operating system text.

This is definitely a well written book, and the coverage of the trade-offs that an OS designer must make are very insightful, but if you don't plan on hacking Minix, you should probably look elsewhere.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars With this book, you have everything to start writing your OS August 24, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I'm only studying computer sciences for 1 year, so I'm still a beginner, and this book was easy for me to read. It faces you with much of the tasks an OS has. It explains everything in detail. Example: It explains step by step, what's going on with a character you typed, untill it's on your screen. Maybe, you thought it was simple. Well, it isn't, but the book explains it very easy, so you can easily understand it with a bit of brains. PS. You don't have to know your English very well, because I understood the book, and normally I never speak English, because I speak Flemisch.