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Operating Systems (3rd Edition) 3rd Edition

3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 35 ratings

Operating Systems, Third Edition has become a market leader by striking a balance between introducing the basic principles and putting examples from Linux, UNIX, and Windows into practice. The book promotes an understanding of contemporary operating system concepts and how they are applied today. For the third edition Gary Nutt has enhanced his vision with even more breadth to his coverage of operating system principles and even more opportunities for readers to see and work with real-world examples.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gary J. Nutt is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado. He has also worked as researcher at Xerox PARC and Bell Labs, and as a corporate Vice President and manager of the Boulder office of Interactive Systems. His research interests are in operating systems, distributed systems, performance, and collaboration technology. He teaches in these areas as well as object-oriented software and networks.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pearson; 3rd edition (July 13, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 894 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0201773449
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0201773446
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.2 x 2 x 9.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 35 ratings

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Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
35 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2016
Very satisfied for the price. Book is as described. Clean, like new.
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2004
There are many books written on the topic of Operating Systems, but no book covers all the major and even some not so popular Operating Systems so well. Anything from Pocket PC to Unix and Linux in detail: Distributed computing, clustered computing, virtual machines and everything in between. Various important topics in Operating System such as File management, Memory Management including virtual memory, Security and Networking topics are discussed in detail, and popular Operating Systems frequently used today are used as examples of how each subsystem is developed.
Gary Nutt starts this book by going over the basic of Operating Systems. Its components, subsystems and more specifically what are know to be the most important component of a well established Operating System: Memory Subsystem, File System, I/O System and Process Management. The book takes a unique approach in introducing various components of an OS to the reader. The author assumes that the reader has some programming experience, which is a very good assumption, and instead of taking a bottom up approach, it takes a top down approach in showing the various aspects of an OS. In Chapter 2, the student/reader is shown a multi-threaded program in Linux/Unix and Windows. The programs in this chapter and all the subsequent chapters are used to bridge the gap between theory and actual practice in the design and implementation on an Operating System. Other books mainly talk about the various aspects of an OS, but none really actually shows the reader/student how it actually works under the hood via programming examples, and code samples. By the end of chapter 4, the reader has a fairly good understanding of what Operating Systems are made out of and what each component of an OS actually works, even down to the CPU level with interrupts and memory allocation.
Chapter 5 talks about Device Management: device drivers, various I/O strategies and it discusses the steps required to build be device manager. The lab at the end of the chapter is particularly interesting as it walks the student thru building a floppy disk driver.
The next four chapters are probably the most well written chapters on Process Management. As with the other parts of the book, the two main Operating Systems: Windows and Unix, are covered in detail and an emphasis is put on how these two OS's differ from each other and in what aspect. The author starts by talking a little abstractly about processes, their various states and how they fit into the overall architecture of an OS. The authors then goes into more specific details and talks about the various implementation details on Process Managers and what their job is. This pattern continues throughout the chapter with the author spending a bit of time on various aspect of a process manager, and then going deeper into it and talking about how Unix or Windows have implemented such function. The topic of process Synchronization which tends to be a very difficult topic to cover is probably the best written chapter in the entire book. The author uses coding samples from the get go to discuss the topic. The coding samples apply to Unix, but they are still very applicable to Windows. The author step by step peels the onion and teaches the student how process sync is done in an Operating System, and how the same techniques can be used in everyday programming practices. The labs at the end of these five chapters are very practical, as I have come across these same problems more than once in my professional life.
Memory Management is covered in the next two chapters. Paging and segmentation are covered in detail and the two labs focus on Memory Management topic in Windows and Unix. The interesting part about topic is that the author does not hesitate to use an old and obsolete Operating System, Multics, to convey to the reader how Memory Management is best done. The reader does get a solid understanding of how Memory Management is done in the popular OS's, however.
File Management and Security relatively small chapter in this book. The chapter in security is relatively a little dry, but I guess that's just the nature of the topic - not much can done about that. Very informative chapter, nonetheless.
Distributed Computing, Middleware, Networking and Distributed Programming cover some of the advanced topics at the end of this book. Chapter 20 and 21 gets down and dirty with comparing Linux with Windows. A head to head objective comparison of these two Operating Systems thru two case studies. I found these two chapters to be a very good closing to this book, as there is so much controversy surrounding these two OS's.
Overall, Gary Nutt has done a great job putting this textbook together. The organization, examples, labs and more importantly the contents are well worth the read. A students, this might be the best book covering the topic of Operating System as it covers by example and by showing the reader how it's done in the read world.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2012
I'll admit that writing a book on operating system is difficult, but this book is a huge disappointment for being a "3rd Edition". I agree with the other reviewer who said this book "does more harm than good." Another issue, is that this book is out of date and hasn't been revised to reflect the current state of operating systems. Many of the more interesting concepts such as monitors and thread safety are not given enough treatment.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2008
This books picks up examples from real operating systems.. the conslusions at the end of every chapter make sense to anybody who has actually written code for an OS rather than one of those books that pontificate about how it is supposed to be.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2010
If you have to read it like me for a class, then there is no choice but to get it. However, if you have a choice, don't read it. Read the man pages... for they give a better understanding of it.

Take a subject, like Public Key Encryption. Search Google on how it works, read wikipedia, and all that fun reads to get a good understanding of the subject. Now read the chapter of how Nutt describes it... You will question yourself if you really understand it. Worst of all, he knows that it is confusing and tries to explain it another way, but only loses you more.

One of many examples...
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2014
When it came in, it was in good condition and it served its purpose well. I needed it for a class at my university and it didn't let me down!
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2006
Overall, this book covers the topic adequately with alot of examples and indepth applications. There are sections where Nutt can get alittle obtuse with his mathematical treatise on the subject matter. There are also alot of typo errors throughout the book so be sure to get the errata sheet. Keep in mind that computer science is a tough field and requires alot of discipline and mental apptitude. There are alot of people trying to enter this field who simply do not have the ability at this. Hence, some of the aforementioned criticisms of this book are not totally justified. The book does require work and that is what computer science is all about - HARD WORK!
3 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2011
The book has many typos both in the explanations and the code examples. Some of the chapter review questions cannot be answered from within the text as the author does not always discuss the subject.

Works okay as an introduction into Operating Systems but the information is quite out of date these days. Could use a new revision.

Top reviews from other countries

Arnaud
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Textbook
Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2015
Excellent textbook, explains thoroughly the concepts with helpful examples. I am using it for my Operating System class and it definitely is a useful tool, I recommend it.
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on March 8, 2017
very satisfied by the quality of the book
Pruthvinath Rao Dhannapuneni
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Canada on July 25, 2015
Good