Understanding the Linux Kernel by Daniel P. Bovet, Marco Cesati

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Use the source, Luke: The best way to understand operating systems is to look at source code -- preferably with help from experts. Nowadays, there’s no better operating system to inspect than Linux. And there are no better guides than Daniel Bovet and Marco Cesati. Especially now that they’ve updated Understanding the Linux Kernel for Linux 2.6.

Here’s your guided tour of the kernel: core data structures, design decisions, algorithms, and programming tricks. Bovet and Cesati can’t cover everything, but in 900 pages, they cover a lot: memory addressing and management, processes and scheduling, interrupts, exceptions, synchronization, timing, address spaces, system calls, signals, filesystems, I/O, device drivers, IPC, program execution, and more. While most content is hardware-independent, wherever it isn’t, the authors focus on x86 -- offering even deeper insights into Linux’s efficiency. Bill Camarda, from the February 2006 Read Only

From the Publisher

In order to thoroughly understand what makes Linux tick and why it works so well on a wide variety of systems, you need to delve deep into the heart of the kernel. The kernel handles all interactions between the CPU and the external world, and determines which programs will share processor time, in what order. It manages limited memory so well that hundreds of processes can share the system efficiently, and expertly organizes data transfers so that the CPU isn't kept waiting any longer than necessary for the relatively slow disks.

The third edition of Understanding the Linux Kernel takes you on a guided tour of the most significant data structures, algorithms, and programming tricks used in the kernel. Probing beyond superficial features, the authors offer valuable insights to people who want to know how things really work inside their machine. Important Intel-specific features are discussed. Relevant segments of code are dissected line by line. But the book covers more than just the functioning of the code; it explains the theoretical underpinnings of why Linux does things the way it does.

This edition of the book covers Version 2.6, which has seen significant changes to nearly every kernel subsystem, particularly in the areas of memory management and block devices. The book focuses on the following topics:

• Memory management, including file buffering, process swapping, and Direct memory Access (DMA)
• The Virtual Filesystem layer and the Second and Third Extended Filesystems
• Process creation and scheduling
• Signals, interrupts, and the essential interfaces to device drivers
• Timing
• Synchronization within thekernel
• Interprocess Communication (IPC)
• Program execution

Understanding the Linux Kernel will acquaint you with all the inner workings of Linux, but it's more than just an academic exercise. You'll learn what conditions bring out Linux's best performance, and you'll see how it meets the challenge of providing good system response during process scheduling, file access, and memory management in a wide variety of environments. This book will help you make the most of your Linux system.

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents