Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles (4th Edition) [Hardcover]

William Stallings (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0130319996 | ISBN-13: 978-0130319999 | Publication Date: December 15, 2000 | Edition: 4

Blending up-to-date theory with state-of-the-art applications, this book offers a comprehensive treatment of operating systems, with an emphasis on internals and design issues. It helps readers develop a solid understanding of the key structures and mechanisms of operating systems, the types of trade-offs and decisions involved in OS design, and the context within which the operating system functions (hardware, other system programs, application programs, interactive users). Process Description And Control. Threads, SMP, And Microkernels. Concurrency: Mutual Exclusion And Synchronization. Concurrency: Deadlock And Starvation. Memory Management. Virtual Memory. Uniprocessor Scheduling. Multiprocessor And Real-Time Scheduling. I/O Management And Disk Scheduling. File Management. Distributed Processing, Client/Server, And Clusters. Distributed Process Management. Security. For product development personnel (Programmers, Systems Engineers, Network Designers, and others involved in the design of data communications and networking products), Product marketing personnel, and Information system and computer system personnel.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Blending up-to-date theory with state-of-the-art applications, this book offers a comprehensive treatment of operating systems, with an emphasis on internals and design issues. It helps readers develop a solid understanding of the key structures and mechanisms of operating systems, the types of trade-offs and decisions involved in OS design, and the context within which the operating system functions (hardware, other system programs, application programs, interactive users). Process Description And Control. Threads, SMP, And Microkernels. Concurrency: Mutual Exclusion And Synchronization. Concurrency: Deadlock And Starvation. Memory Management. Virtual Memory. Uniprocessor Scheduling. Multiprocessor And Real-Time Scheduling. I/O Management And Disk Scheduling. File Management. Distributed Processing, Client/Server, And Clusters. Distributed Process Management. Security. For product development personnel (Programmers, Systems Engineers, Network Designers, and others involved in the design of data communications and networking products), Product marketing personnel, and Information system and computer system personnel.

About the Author

    William Stallings has made a unique contribution to understanding the broad sweep of technical developments in computer networking and computer architecture. He has authored 17 titles, and counting revised editions, a total of 41 books on various aspects of these subjects. In over 20 years in the field, he has been a technical contributor, technical manager, and an executive with several high-technology firms. Currently he is an independent consultant whose clients have included computer and networking manufacturers and customers, software development firms, and leading-edge government research institutions.

         He has seven times received the award for the best Computer Science textbook of the year from the Text and Academic Authors Association.

         Bill has designed and implemented both TCP/IP-based and OSI-based protocol suites on a variety of computers and operating systems, ranging from microcomputers to mainframes. As a consultant, he has advised government agencies, computer and software vendors, and major users on the design, selection, and use of networking software and products.

         As evidence of his commitment to providing a broad range of support to students, Bill created and maintains the Computer Science Student Resource Site at WilliamStallings.com/StudentSupport.html. This site provides documents and links on a variety of subjects of general interest to computer science students (and professionals).

         He is a member of the editorial board of Cryptologia, a scholarly journal devoted to all aspects of cryptology. He is a frequent lecturer and author of numerous technical papers. His books include Data and Computer Communications, Eighth Edition (Prentice Hall, 2007), which has become the standard in the field.

         Dr. Stallings holds a PhD from M.I.T. in Computer Science and a B.S. from Notre Dame in electrical engineering.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 4 edition (December 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130319996
• ISBN-13: 978-0130319999
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #554,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Improving, but not really a classic, July 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles (4th Edition) (Hardcover)

I have taught operating systems at the graduate level for the last 5 years. In other areas of computer science, I've been spoiled by classic textbooks (e.g. Aho, Sethi and Ullman's "Compilers: Principles Designs and Tools", aka "The Dragon Book" for compiler design, Hennessy and Patterson's "Computer Architecture a Quantitative Approach", etc.) Computer Operating systems is a mature field, yet no textbook reaches classic stature in Operating Systems. Previous editions of the textbook have had serious errata in the problem sets (it i embarrassing to assign unsolvable problems to students) I no longer use any problems from this book as a result.

However, among Operating Systems textbooks, there are primarily 2 categories, those with example code (e.g. Tannenbaums) and survey books. This is a survey book (sometimes called theoretical, but not in the Automata Theory or Algorithms sense). It has some overview of design principles and some analysis, which makes it better than the others I've seen, but still leaves a bit to be desired, I feel it is still a bit too qualitative. I'd like to see more back of the envelope analysis (like say Patterson and Hennessy's book). The section on scheduling is pretty good, with some nice analysis, and the queueing theory section is useful for first year grads and upper division undergrads. Still, I need to assign quite a bit of additional literature.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unconvential, yet very useful, October 29, 2001

By 

G. Avvinti (Sicily, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles (4th Edition) (Hardcover)

I liked this book's organization. I have also Tanenbaum's and Silberschatz's; what I concluded it's that this book, even if sometime appeared to be a bit ... compacted on some "traditional" issues (if I can judge them this way on the basis of the other two books, but processes' statuses are covered here better than anywhere else), it has given space to some other very interesting ones, starting from Security, and going on with SMP topics.
I particularly enjoyed the view it adopted even on common topics. E.g. the emphasis it gave to subtleties like distinguish the nature of the four requirements for deadlocks, the classification of various policies and mechanism (in a astonishingly efficient way) for topics like scheduling, paged memory issues or the importance of interrupts as The tool for modern techniques and achievements.
And ... the chapter on security has been a lifesave for me on the last days of the course.
Keep this book near to Tanenbaum's second edition of "Modern Operatin System" if you can, and you'll have plenty of good material for a typical OS course.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of concepts on Operating System, February 21, 2009

By 

H. Ong "Amy H C Ong" (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles (6th Edition) (Hardcover)

This book provides basic introduction to OS concepts with clear descriptions, complemented by good figures demonstrating the concepts being taught. In addition, it has a website that is rich with resources, providing a wealth of information whether to be used for teaching, presentations or further understanding.

However, this book does not dwell in depth into any particular topic. Further research or other technical books need to be undertaken on any particular topic of interest or actual implementations (Linux, Unix, etc).

Given my background in electrical/electronic engineering, this book serves me well to understand the basic concepts of OS design.