The Linux Kernel Book (Paperback)

by Rémy Card (Author), Éric Dumas (Author), Franck Mével (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"The book you hold in your hand will hopefully help you understand the Linux operating system kernel better ... it really is a strange and wonderful world, full of subtle details ranging from how to control the physical hardware to how to manage multiple different users at the same time with limited resources ...", Linus Torvalds , , #

Product Description
‘The book you hold in your hand will hopefully help you understand the Linux operating system kernel better… it really is a strange and wonderful world, full of subtle details ranging from how to control the physical hardware to how to manage multiple different users at the same time with limited resources…’ Linus Torvalds the Linux Kernel book by Rémy Card, Éric Dumas, Franck Mével Translated by Chris Skrimshire Linux has the performance of many commercial Unix systems. It is stable, yet continues to evolve due to the many worldwide developers continually updating it and adding further functionality. As such, it can control the latest peripheral devices on the market such as flash memory and optical disks. Its power and flexibility and the fact that it is free has assured it an enthusiastic user base in academia, amongst home hobbyists, and increasingly in the business world. The Linux Kernel Book allows you to delve into the heart of this operating system by means of an in-depth treatment of the internal functioning of the kernel. Each chapter deals in detail with the system components, including:

• Process management
• Memory management
• IPC Systems V
• Signals
• Pipes
• POSIX tty
• File systems
• Loadable modules
• Administration

The first part of each chapter presents basic concepts and describes the associated system calls, illustrating these with examples written in C. The second part of the chapter extends to a more advanced treatment, showing how the concepts are implemented at the level of the kernel and presenting the data structures and the internal functions used in Linux.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 548 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (June 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471981419
• ISBN-13: 978-0471981411
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #861,876 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Better than cleaning your teeth with a bench grinder., October 29, 1999

By A Customer

-

Computer-related books are a vast wasteland. Most of my quibbles about the book would be irrelevant if it were titled "The Linux Kernel for Cretins." In that case I'd have had to give it two stars. But, it appears to be targeted at serious kernel programmers.

In most places, the previously mentioned "poor translation from the French" wasn't perceptible to me. However, I _was_ disappointed with the technical content. Conditioned by things like the BSD book by McKusick et al, I expect discussion about interesting technical points instead of descriptions of kernel entry points. If I wanted to know what functions were available for signal management, I guess I'd read the man pages.

However, all the user-level information does bulk the book up nicely, obscuring the fact that it doesn't have much fiber. For example, I wanted to know something about how _procfs_ was implemented. After eliminating the description of various files in /proc (which are documented better elsewhere) there are about two pages of description--mostly of the "Jeshua begat Shemtup" variety. I can use tags and glimpse as well as the next guy--what I'd like is a higher-level description.

In summary, it has some interesting information, but any kernel book I can skim through in less than a day isn't much of a kernel book, Senator.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Regret, January 10, 2000

By	Raymond Mak,CCIE,CISSP (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

Before buying this book, I have bought another book - Linux Kernel Internals which is good but not up-to-date. So I buy this - The Linux Kernel Book for getting more up-to-date materials. I cannot get what I want in it. One of my disappointment is the index, the index is so messy, I cannot follow the structure of the index, so I can't find the materials quickly. Also, the content is organized in a mess also. I regret that I have bought this book, I waste my money and waste my time.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor translation hampers well thought-out book, September 16, 1998

By	Andre Lucas (Newbury, England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a very difficult book to read, which is a pity as I think the French version must be good. The content is well structured given its highly technical nature. The presentation is superior to similar books on Linux (which seem to think it's OK use the source code to explain the source code.) The authors clearly know their stuff. All the right ingredients.

Unfortunately the translation to English is dreadful. Another Amazon reviewer suggested it was done using a computer. I can't really tell, but the effect is that I was unable to concentrate on the topic at hand. Instead I was trying to understand the sometimes nonsensical grammar, or grind my way through sentences full of thoughtless reuse of a particular word. (The processes chapter has an great example, five instances of the word 'process' in two lines of prose.) Even a translator program might try a synonym once in a while!

Though the presentation is better than other Linux technical publications, it still has the feel of a 'techie' book. Classic books on similar subjects, for example those by Bach or Tanenbaum, manage to avoid printing endless tables full of useless data, yet they still educate the reader. It's a matter of personal taste of course, but in my opinion the editor could have saved a good deal of paper simply by tactful application of the delete key.

I guess it must be tough to find someone who has enough understanding of both written English and programming to translate such a book, but it's a shame they didn't do a better job. I have seen it done well with equally tough topics.

I hope there's a new edition for Linux 2.2, but I wouldn't recommend buying it unless they get someone else to do the English version.