Operating Systems Design and Implementation (3rd Edition) (Prentice Hall Software Series)

For introductory courses on computer operating systems. Revised to address the latest version of MINIX (MINIX 3), this streamlined, simplified new edition remains the only operating systems text to first explain relevant principles, then demonstrate their applications using a Unix-like operating system as a detailed example. It has been especially designed for high reliability, for use in embedded systems, and for ease of teaching.

User review
A truly brilliant work of a Master piece
Many people who are commenting on the book by Tanenbaum are people who are writing after the year 2000. Operating system developed has had a long history since 1970 when Unix was developed.

After that there was no significant movement on the Unix like systems (of course Microsoft and Apple were working) on their own OS but there were not Unix like.

Tanenbaum wrote a Unix like System in 1987 which shares the File management, Process Management, Device Management and Memory management with Unix. He called it as MINIX OS.

After that rest is History, Linus Torvalds wrote the Linux kernel. Even though Linux today has advanced a lot due to the Networking code, ACPI, SMB, Device drivers, please should examine Linux 0.01 written first by Linus.

That code also consisted of only 20,000 lines and was very similar to MINIX(Not in design but in Code size).

So do not blame the Author if he is not writing an advanced OS for you to study. Those have millions of lines of code.

What MINIX shows us is a reliable and stable OS that is good study material for better OS's.

If you want to understand nuts and bolts of OS study this book and write the code. You will be a master of Operating system.

Atleast it is not those books who dig into a LOT OF THEORY like Different types of OS and explaining the theoritical aspects but do nothing of implementation.

This book does the implementation. ***** Stars.

User review
Great OS book
I really liked this book, specially how it describes the implementation of several aspects of the operating system.

User review
I like Minix3, not the book
I like the microkernel approach to implement a UNIX-like OS. It is simple and elegant although it does sacrifice a little performance. However, the book is not particularly well-written. It lacked clarity in its explanation of both theory and implementation.

User review
A great introduction to operating systems
This book is written by Tanenbaum, the main guy behind Minix, which is what Linux was based on. It provides good overviews for basic OS concepts like memory management, file systems, processes, etc. The concepts in this book book are intimately tied to examples of the Minix OS, which is a good thing.

To those who would rather see examples from Linux: Minix is a compact and modular OS, which is why it's a good choice for examples. The book contains the entire source code at the back for easy reference. Yes, the OS is that small. That's a good thing when you're trying to figure out how virtual memory works or what have you. You'd be lost trying to learn this stuff from Linux. Above everything else, the code is ***well-commented*** compared to Linux, a major plus. You won't find any `/* major hack */` comments, either. ;) Minix leaves out all the crap that Microsoft and Linux throw into the kernel that make it unstable in the first place. Learn about the bells and whistles later when you can do the basics.

I encountered two instances where the book wasn't updated to reflect changes in the OS, which were annoying to deal with. Also, I found a spelling or punctuation error about every ten pages, which was annoying for such a pricey book. Overall, however, the book is extremely usable and understandable. It's easy to pick up concepts from this text.

User review
Not the best basis for Operating System design
While this book is good explaining theory and demonstrating it in the author's operating system, MINIX, MINIX is an insanely small OS. Now there's nothing wrong with that by default, just keep in mind that any OS you were to write in industry, etc would be way more complex.

Also, beware, of the 1000+ pages, at least a quarter of that is a print out, line by line, of the MINIX 3 source code. (Approximately 30,000 lines,,.)

Bottom line: Good for basic theory and understanding, but you would need to know much more to write a friendly OS.