Customer Reviews

Operating Systems: A Design-Oriented Approach

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The book by Crowley introduces the operating systems while explaining how to design one (just as the name suggests). After every chapter in which on of the OS function is discusses, there is a chapter on how to design these features.

The book does not give the operating systems basics. While reading some chapters, it seems that the author assumes that you know the concept. For example, when discussing messaging, nowhere in the book, it is explained what it is, why it is?

Most of the code written in the book is beyond understanding. No useful explanation is given anywhere.

Apart from that the information provided in it is good for supplementary material. I've used it as supporting book along with 'Operating Systems Concept' by Silberchatz for undergrad course. Some topics like threads, IPC, and synchronization are better explained in the Crowley's book than in the Silberchatz book.

I have over twenty operating system books and I think that this is one of the best. I am still puzzled to why there have not been more reviews about this book.

This is the clearest view of the subject that I have encountered.

A must read not only for OS concepts and design but for the
different aproaches to be taken while doing a product development.
Gives design considerations and techniques for all the major OS modules in detail and with examples.

I once wanted to write my own Operating System (OS) and all I could do is writing a boot loader that would show one line welcome message. I did not finish the entire book and yet wanted to speak for this book because it created a new genre of computer science books.

There are plenty of books on OS and most of them will give you definitive information on the building blocks of an OS. But none of them will tell you why you need those building blocks, can you live without them and more importantly - should OS be defined based on its implementation such as UNIX, WINDOWS etc.! There is a complete different perspective this book would give you in terms of OS and in terms of anything you learn:-).

Those who want to write an OS, learn OS with passion and for authors who would like to make an impact on readers this book is a gem.

I have read many books on operating system implementation and also worked on building a few UNIX based operating systems. With that background, I have to say that this is one of the best design books available in Computer Science, and not just the in the field of operating systems.

It took me a few years to appreciate the fine art of "designing" things. Once I did learn to appreciate it, I always wondered why the notion of design was not introduced earlier in my education. This book by Charles Crowley is just what was needed. This book is exemplary in its approach and most importantly, in its execution.

One can go and figure out OS implementation details in many books (Vahalia, Maurice Bach, Linux Internals books, etc) and I am sure one can even grab some code from the books and compile it and use it right away. But, that is not the intent of this book. The intent is to teach design to an operating systems student (beginner or experienced) and design is a true skill for an engineer. The pseudo code is meant to be read and understood, and not copied and used. The author is a true educator and his doing this is proof of it.

The one thing that surprises me is: why did this book not become more famous that some other utterly useless UNIX internals books?? I do not know, but I am sure the reasons are not technical. This is an excellent book for systems software engineers.

There are so many books to explain OS principle.
this book is not for OS beginner but OS designer!
I think that any person who is interested in OS design cannot find better than this book for this issue.
Of course, the codes in this book are not directly runned.
But I think that it was best choice to explain general concepts and if you are experienced kernel engineer, I believe that you may agree with me.

We can see what the approach was with this book. Read a bunch of other OS books, and cut and paste the material into your own. This book brings absolutely nothing new to the table as far as Operating Systems goes. It's also clear that the author made little or no effort to distill the latest advances in Operating Systems anywhere in the text. I think the lack of reviews speaks loudly about this book.

It would be nice if the code in Crowley's case study implementation of an operating systems class would actually compile! (With out me having to fix the bugs.) I find the fact that most of the tripe in the book does not apply to any real operating systems. What the hell? References to specific algorithms and how they are implemented in REAL operating systems would have added much to this book. (i.e. Like what scheduling algorithm does Linux use in its virtual memory management and contrast that with what algorithm WinNT uses. Benifits, problems, etc.)

Frankly, Crowley's book is too idealistic to be useful. I recomend buying a real OS book! Like the Stallings OS book. Also, the OReilly book on the Linux Kernel rocks! Get the Stallings and Oreilly book, and you will be a OS guru in no time.

(1)it is very clear
(2)its depth
(3)its different approach to the content