Customer Reviews

Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles (6th Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I am an undergraduate student in MIS, and I have to take a course in OS. This is the book the professor assigned.

I began reading the first few pages today, all the while wondering just what kind of beginning OS student would find this useful. Stallings jumps in to a detailed description of hardware components without providing a simple, "top-down" description first. The prose is wordy and, at times, unneccessarily infused with technojargon. Sometimes the author makes such great leaps in his thinking that the reader is left puzzled, at best. I got the impression when I read these few pages that Stallings intended this book to be a follow-up to a basic introduction to computer hardware learned in another course.

Bottom line: This book is probably very useful for those who have spent a good deal of time studying computers at the design level. If you're taking an OS course outside of a computer science degree program, you'll likely be confused

Like many other people, this book was assigned to me as a textbook for a college class. I found it to be tremendously useful, and learned far more form it than the professor. Although clearly not for a beginner, if you're serious about learning what goes into an OS, and how current OSes work on a fundamental level, this is a great reference.

I think this is a good book if it is the textbook for a computer science course. It reads easily and I didn't find it boring at all since the subject interests me. The text starts with simple concepts and builds up to more advanced concepts, just like a text book is supposed to do.
This book is probably not an easy read for non computer science people, the pace might be too slow for people who already know lots about operating systems, and it might not go into enough details, but this is all typical for a text book on such a broad subject. I give it 4 stars just because textbooks are so overpriced.

This book provides not only an excellent overview of general operating systems principles, but it also describes modern operating systems such as Windows (in its many guises), UNIX and Linux in great detail.
Another strength is the use of many excellent diagrams to illustrate the concepts dealt with in the book.

I am using it as a reference for one of my courses.

This book is for beginners, and it is easy to read. It illustrate concurrency well. However, it doen't do so well about the Filesystem. The context on the FS is too lack. But I still consider it as a readable book .

Operating Systems is a comprehensive and well written technical book. Anyone interested in a solid understanding of the fundamentals of operating systems should consider this book. Any computer science professional will reference this book repeatedly to freshen up understanding of key principles and theories. From application programming to systems administration, this book is important for the integration of techniques that rely on a firm understanding of theory.

Beginners book: Yes
Recommended beginners book: NO

I had to read this book for a course and after passing this class on OS, I go to systems programming and I dont know what a process image on Unix is, which is a very simple thing that this book fails to deliver. This has been written with the intent of being as the 1st book on OS, then it should deal with two things embedded OS and computer OS in a general manner.

There is no RTOS here.

So, there are only two things to teach on computer OS: Windows and Unix. Why talk about Sloaris and Linux and Unix and what not, a simple discussion on Sun solaris is good, it covers too much, there are absolutely no programming assignments on OS.

This book might be ok for IT people, but if u r going to be a programmer or a system guy, stay away from it.

I was so so disappointed after reading this book (whatever I could). The memory management section is so pathetic. Most of the things that this book tells us, we already know, that is the kind of abstract matter there is in it.

It is funny that this book got some sort of award.