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Customer Review
I've never seen a book rated so high. After starting to read it, If I could give it 10 stars, I would! Wow!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 10, 2013
What an incredible resource for the Linux community!
I'm an Oracle DBA, that has always been interested in the lower-level stuff (I/O, system calls, etc.). I was researching Oracle ASM (Oracle's own volume manager), but feeling the need to get more insight into the Linux I/O subsystem. So, I went to Amazon, started searching for relevant resources, and came across this book.
I've bought thousands of dollars of technical books on Amazon, and read lots of Amazon reviews.
When I bought this book, it had 61 reviews. 60 rated the book a 5 star, and 1 rated the book a 4-star.
I have *never* seen a book rated so highly on Amazon before. A book, with incredible ratings like that, was simply unheard of.
I'm now reading the book, and thoroughly enjoying the care, the attention to detail, the comprehensiveness, the technical accuracy, the methodology, the extremely well-written English, the clear explanations, and the well-written code.
For example, on page 246, where Michael discusses Direct I/O, he says:
"If a file is opened with O_DIRECT by one process, and opened normally (i.e. so that the buffer cache is used) by another process, then there is no coherency between the contents of the buffer cache and the data read or written via direct I/O. Such scenarios should be avoided."
Wow. In just one sentence, Michael tells us one of the fundamental issues with concurrent I/O, and that by simultaneously using different I/O mechanisms, you can corrupt your files.
Another example: on page 249, Michael writes:
"When using the stdio library functions in conjunction with I/O system calls to perform I/O on disk files, we must keep buffering issues in mind. I/O system calls transfer data directly to the kernel buffer cache, while the stdio library waits until the stream's user-space buffer is full before calling write() to transfer the buffer to the kernel buffer cache."
Wow. It makes sense, when you know as much about the Linux kernel as Michael does. Need to insert an fflush() between the stdio write and the system call write. Another "Aha!" moment, just a couple of pages later. And the pages in between had one of the clearest examples of code for Direct I/O that I have ever seen. Michael even writes about the memory alignment challenges of Direct I/O.
It's simply incredible! How in the world could anyone write so much high-quality technical stuff? It's 1500+ pages of awe inspiring, amazing technical blessing. It is a fabulous example to everyone in the I.T. industry, and a very high bar for any technical books to come.
Thank you, Michael, for your incredible book.
I'm an Oracle DBA, that has always been interested in the lower-level stuff (I/O, system calls, etc.). I was researching Oracle ASM (Oracle's own volume manager), but feeling the need to get more insight into the Linux I/O subsystem. So, I went to Amazon, started searching for relevant resources, and came across this book.
I've bought thousands of dollars of technical books on Amazon, and read lots of Amazon reviews.
When I bought this book, it had 61 reviews. 60 rated the book a 5 star, and 1 rated the book a 4-star.
I have *never* seen a book rated so highly on Amazon before. A book, with incredible ratings like that, was simply unheard of.
I'm now reading the book, and thoroughly enjoying the care, the attention to detail, the comprehensiveness, the technical accuracy, the methodology, the extremely well-written English, the clear explanations, and the well-written code.
For example, on page 246, where Michael discusses Direct I/O, he says:
"If a file is opened with O_DIRECT by one process, and opened normally (i.e. so that the buffer cache is used) by another process, then there is no coherency between the contents of the buffer cache and the data read or written via direct I/O. Such scenarios should be avoided."
Wow. In just one sentence, Michael tells us one of the fundamental issues with concurrent I/O, and that by simultaneously using different I/O mechanisms, you can corrupt your files.
Another example: on page 249, Michael writes:
"When using the stdio library functions in conjunction with I/O system calls to perform I/O on disk files, we must keep buffering issues in mind. I/O system calls transfer data directly to the kernel buffer cache, while the stdio library waits until the stream's user-space buffer is full before calling write() to transfer the buffer to the kernel buffer cache."
Wow. It makes sense, when you know as much about the Linux kernel as Michael does. Need to insert an fflush() between the stdio write and the system call write. Another "Aha!" moment, just a couple of pages later. And the pages in between had one of the clearest examples of code for Direct I/O that I have ever seen. Michael even writes about the memory alignment challenges of Direct I/O.
It's simply incredible! How in the world could anyone write so much high-quality technical stuff? It's 1500+ pages of awe inspiring, amazing technical blessing. It is a fabulous example to everyone in the I.T. industry, and a very high bar for any technical books to come.
Thank you, Michael, for your incredible book.
