Reviews (10)

Excellent!
We had to buy this book as part of our undergraduate Computer Engineering curriculum at The University of Akron.The book is very well written; I taught myself a lot by studying it.
Try reading 3 pages without falling asleep
While "Operating Systems" is not exactly the sexiest subject in Computer Science, it ought to be possible to make it interesting, for example by taking a historical or problem solving approach.
its a text book
Its a text book a book you have to buy too pass class. Its a lot better than stallings book though. For most topics its pretty good explaining, with decent examples. And its a lot better than stallings OS book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computers    3. Computers - Operating Systems    4. Operating Systems - General    5. Operating systems (Computers)    6. Programming Languages - C    7. Programming Languages - C++    8. C & Visual C    9. Computers / Operating Systems / General    10. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Editorial Review

For software development professionals and computer science students, Read more

Reviews (25)

OS Textbook
I found the book complicated but I am not a programmer. The book covers alot of concepts which I found hard to grasp. Overall the book is not bad but if you are looking for something that will teach you programming I would not recommend this book.

Totally Sucked
I'm taking a college course and this book really bites. Reading it just leaves me in a daze. He goes on and on about how this method won't work and that method won't work which completely covers up what we need to learn. I'm getting 98.18% in the class on term 8 of 10, but it's not due to this book. Unfortuneatley I'm stuck with the book because it's what the school uses. Find another one.

Amazing
I have been able to, using just this book, read and learn about operating systems in a very thorough and painless way. The writing is straightforward and really demystifies OSs. I am a college CS student taking an OS course and this has been an invaluable asset. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Operating Systems    3. Computers    4. Computers - Operating Systems    5. Operating Systems - General    6. Operating systems (Computers)    7. Computers / Operating Systems / General    8. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Reviews (20)

A must if you need to pass the first time.
Depending on your experience this may be the only book you need to pass the 70-721 exam. I did require additional material but this book was certainly the major reason that I passed the exam with a 917 score.
Understanding XP
It is worth every Penny you spend. I will refer back to itfor years.

Workplace Compliance Purchase
I am within hours of retiring from "Corporate America." Then, why would I purchase such a boring piece of reading material? The answer is, the yuppies who run the company think they are doing us a favor by making us learn about technology that will be obsolete in weeks. Even worse they require the cost of that training to come out of our own pockets. I needed a training package to get a better review and a small bonus. After taxes the bonus was only three times the cost of the book. Whoopee! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Certification Guides - General    2. Computer Books: Operating Systems    3. Computers    4. Computers - Certification    5. Computers - General Information    6. Data Processing - General    7. Electronic Data Processing    8. General    9. Microcomputer Operating Environments    10. Operating Systems - Windows    11. Operating Systems - Windows XP    12. Computers / General    13. Microsoft Windows   

Reviews (6)

cyber kid
My Operating Systems course used this book and we were assigned chapters that did not coincide. Lack of editing, and no source code for process and child process creation, nor thread or how a thread can spawn another thread. This book is incredibly disappointing. This book does not read well at all.
Good, solid, but not Stallings' best book.
I've just finished using this book for a course and I wanted to write a review while the information was still fresh in my mind. However because mine looks to be the only positive review I will probably fall into the trap of rebutting some of the other reviews.
Reality check time...
I always end up writing these reviews with some trepidation... Am I out to convince people to buy stuff or not to buy stuff?
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computer Operating Systems    3. Computers    4. Computers - Operating Systems    5. Operating Systems - General    6. Operating systems (Computers)    7. Computers / Operating Systems / General    8. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Editorial Review

Operating systems are large and complex, and yet must functionwith near-absolute reliability--that's why they're a class untothemselves in the field of software development. Since its firstrelease 20 years ago, "the dinosaur book"--Read more

Reviews (54)

It's the "Concepts" Book
This book does a good job in keeping up with the Title, "OS Concepts". I won't go in detail justifying that, as it's already been done by several before me.
Accessible treatment of complex topics
This book does a great job of presenting all details of operating system design and operation. When appropriate, the authors point out how Linux, Solaris or Windows implements a given topic. This is valuable for software developers who work on these platform and need to understand how the scheduler is going to react if you spawn new threads/processes.
Great Fundamentals of OS Book
Good book for learning OS principles for undergrad and lower grad students. I recommend this for hose wanting an introduction to OS Internals.
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Subjects:  1. Computers - Operating Systems    2. Computer Bks - Operating Systems    3. Programming Languages - General    4. Programming - Systems Analysis & Design    5. Operating Systems - General    6. Computers / Operating Systems / General    7. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)    8. Operating systems (Computers)    9. Computer Operating Systems    10. Computers    11. Computer Books And Software   

Editorial Review

Part basic primer, part reference guide, this slim volume will make your life with UNIX much simpler. This book is specifically designed for those who are new to UNIX and contains neither introductory-level condescension nor advanced-level gibberish. Well-indexed and clearly mapped, Read more

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Reviews (37)

very insightful UNIX introduction
Well, once I have started with this book and it had beenhelpful and well guiding book. In is not the "only" book you will need. I have followed someone review's advice and paired this book with a "UNIX Essentials" DVD and they made a very effective couple.
nice first UNIX book
I like easy to read book and I also had assumed that learning UNIX is not necessarily has to be a struggle. This book stood up to my expectations almost perfectly: it is very well written and clearly expressed work. It does not overwhelm with technical details and does not press too much. I also followed an advise in someone review and purchased "UNIX Essentials" DVD that is complete unix course recorded. These two nicely complement one another. You watch it and you read it. If you didn't catch it from the first try you watch it again and read it again. In two months I found myself confident to that extend that gave advises to our system administrator and he accepted them because there were subjects that he wasn't completely sure. What I can say, in three month I passed my first interview and got a job! Sure it is a way to start there much of more advanced reading that will take over you with a time however these two provide you with the BASIS!
an excellent handy reference for LEARNERS
I made a mistake buying this book. It may not be apparent from the cover graphics that the name of this book is 'Learning the (in smaller print) UNIX Operating System' and not just 'Unix operating System' - which I was looking for.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computers    3. Computers - Operating Systems    4. Operating Systems - UNIX    5. Operating systems (Computers)    6. Unix (Operating System)    7. Unix (Operating System)    8. Computers / Operating Systems    9. Computers / Operating Systems / UNIX    10. Learning the Unix Operating System    11. Unix, Unix Linux & Unix TCL/TK   

Reviews (21)

magnificent discussion of internal architecture of UNIX
While there may be more detail to be found in "The Magic Garden," or more up-to-date coverage in the likes of Vahalia or Schimmel, Bach's opus is, in the view of this twenty-plus-year UNIX guru, unmatched. I say this because only while reading Bach's book do I experience the sense of philsophic structural perfection, of tool-orientation, of practicality-versus-theoretic-efficiency tradeoff, that characterizes the earliest UNIX monographs (Ritchie, Kernighan, Bourne, Lycklama, Ossana; that sort of thing) that busied me as a freshman. Bach imparts to the reader a glorious--and gloriously holistic--depiction of the structure of the UNIX kernel as a unit. Algorithmic details are provided where appropriate. Exceptionally well thought-out exercises stimulate the reader to extend the textual material where meet. The material is assuredly out of date, but I dare you to critize, say, Lions as being "out of date" (whether or not it describes a 25-year-old, 9K-LOC kernel, it is a scripture of paramount importance, a cornerstone of my computer engineering [n.b.: I didn't say "computer science"] library).
Awesome book on UNIX Internals
It is one of the greatest books that I have ever read on UNIX. It is a comprhensive yet simple depiction of Unix Operating System. This book is a MUST READ for UNIX / UNIX LIKE Operating System Engineers. It is worth possesing a copy as it can come handy quite regularly. I give it a full go go!

A model for how technical books should be written
Maurice Bach's The Design of the Unix Operating System still holds the place of honor on my technical reference bookshelf.After almost 20 years, it provides a clear overview of basic Unix organization and operations and is a model for how technical books should be written.Readers who complain that the text is dated evidently did not bother to notice the 1986 copyright date.Its age, however, has not diminished its clarity of content or usefulness in understanding the Unix operating system. Bach deserves an award for excellence in technical writing. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computers    3. Computers - Operating Systems    4. Operating Systems - UNIX    5. UNIX (Computer file)    6. Computers / Operating Systems / UNIX    7. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Reviews (1)

Good work for hte new exams.
Microsoft's release of the MCDST Certification has you taking 2 exams, 70-271 and 70-272.What you need is something to use as a final study tool and this set is just the right answer. What you have here is a fairly complete breakdown of the exam objective condensed for easy reading.
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Subjects:  1. Certification Guides - General    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computers    4. Computers - Certification    5. Desktop Publishing    6. Reference - General    7. Computer Hardware & Operating Systems    8. Computers / Technical Skills    9. Microsoft Office    10. Study guides, home study & revision notes   

Reviews (7)

Good, but problematic....
I just passed my 70-271 exam and I do believe this book was an important factor in my score. However this book is problematic.
Don't use this book as a primary study guide
There's a lot of unnecessary info in this book that you won't even see on the exam.The practice questions in the book are way too wordy and confusing.Exam Cram has helped me in the past, but not this time.

Don't buy this book, it's awful.
I believe my email to the editor explains it all.I have copied and pasted it below.
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Subjects:  1. Business Software - General    2. Certification    3. Certification Guides - General    4. Computer Books: General    5. Computer Books: Operating Systems    6. Computer technicians    7. Computers    8. Computers - Accounting Packages    9. Desktop Publishing    10. Electronic data processing personnel    11. Examinations    12. Microcomputer Operating Environments    13. Microsoft software    14. Operating Systems - Windows    15. Study guides    16. Tests    17. Computers / Technical Skills    18. Microsoft Windows   

Reviews (3)

a road not taken
There is a whiff of "what-might-have-been" about this book, using the benefit of hindsight. Minix is thoroughly described as a small and impressively documented operating system. It is small enough that if you took the time, you could understand every nook and cranny. From a pedagogic standpoint, it is of great help in nailing down abstract design concepts. Amazingly, the kernel spans only 4000 lines. Nothing at all, compared to linux or other operating systems.
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.
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.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computers    3. Computers - Operating Systems    4. MINIX    5. Operating Systems - General    6. Operating systems (Computers)    7. Computer Hardware & Operating Systems    8. Computers / Operating Systems / General    9. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Editorial Review

Networks just aren't homogeneous anymore, despite the best efforts of operating system vendors to bring about the contrary. Many network administrators need to know how to get around in half a dozen operating systems or more; itinerant consultants find themselves in the same boat. Read more

Reviews (12)

Not worth the money
This book portends to be a universal command guide, and in all fairness they managed to get a good number of commands in the text. Unfortunately the ones the missed are significant (e.g. UNIX tar, which is universal in UNIX and Linux). I would not recommend this book for someone looking for help in distinguishing the difference in Linux and BSD commands.

my review on this book
The book is amazing, it has all the commands i need, from windows to UNIX, but the downside of this is it doesn't have the HP-UX version. i hope they release an updated version of this book with the ones they're missing. One more thing is the pages of this book are too thin, one false move might cause the page to break. I hope the next release should more physically better. I hope you release a universal database version too. And for all the authors of this book out there... keep up the good work.

UCG book in research and teaching
I had waited a long time for a book that could serve me as "manual pages" for different operating systems.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computer Operating Systems    3. Computers    4. Computers - Operating Systems    5. Interactive & Multimedia    6. Internet - General    7. Networking - General    8. Operating Systems - General    9. Operating systems (Computers)    10. Computer Communications & Networking    11. Computers / Networking / General    12. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Reviews (9)

Very nice and complete introduction book
Before I encountered this book it was quite a bit of frustration in attempt to learn BSD and UNIX to the point I can really use it. For some reason there so many good books in a subject with one of two inclinations: or the book is too theoretical and very little of the real workflow provided or it is too down to earth and it is difficult to understand what is behind the sophisticated command line zingers.
Highly recommended for learning how a kernel works in practice
First of all you should be warned that this is not an introduction to get started with UNIX kernel programming. The Design of the UNIX Operating System by M.J. Bach provides a good general introduction to UNIX kernel programming. The design and implementation of the FreeBSD operating system is an excellent book to deepen knowledge of the UNIX kernel by looking how a current UNIX is implemented in practice. Even if you plan to write code for another kernel, working through the FreeBSD kernel with this book as a guide is a good excercise to become consious of the fundamental problems and solutions in kernel design. FreeBSD (or any of the other BSDs) is a good starting point, because the BSDs have relatively stable kernel subsystems and APIs due to the long cycles in BSD development.
The OTHER freeOS explained
A BSD Bible. I never could read the Bible. I do Believe ...
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Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Books: Operating Systems    3. Computers    4. Computers - Languages / Programming    5. Free computer software    6. FreeBSD    7. Miscellaneous Software    8. Operating Systems - General    9. Operating systems (Computers)    10. Computers / Operating Systems / General    11. Unix, Unix Linux & Unix TCL/TK   

Reviews (3)

Good at what it does
What it does: lead the reader through the basic concepts of classic operating systems: processes, synchronization, memory, virtual memory, file systems, IO, and security. Each section alternates between text and answered problems, as is usual for a Schaum's Outline. That's very helpful - putting a concept to use on one problem drives the point home better than a hundred pages of reading. The reader who completes this book, working a good number of the problems, will have seen most of the topics presented in a one-term OS class. No problem there.
Excellent supplement
I have over 10 Schaum's guides for my various courses.I would say this OS guide is perhaps the best one along with the Seymour Lipschutz's erudite "probability" (not to be confused with Murray R. Spiegel's befuddled attempt for Schaum's). Mediocre book, disappointing
I was looking for a rigorous review to supplement my Operating Systems course and I found that this book certainly fell short of that.I wanted more practice for the kinds of questions we would get on exams, but many of the topics addressed were treated at too simplistic of a level.Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Operating Systems    2. Operating Systems - General    3. Operating systems (Computers)    4. Study Aids    5. Study Guides    6. Computers / Operating Systems / General    7. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)    8. Study guides, home study & revision notes   

Reviews (12)

Very good introduction to operating systems
If you are a fan of the other Deitel books, you will probably like this one as well.I used this book in an undergraduate operating systems course and found it to be very useful.I later used the "dinosaurs" book (Silberschatz et al.) in a graduate course and was quite disappointed by the lack of detail.
Good intention != good implementation!
As many other reviewers have mentioned, this book has good content and very well written. However, the plethora of ancilliary information and cliche side-notes, mini-case-studies make what could've been a bar-non primer into a dreadful book. Even though I particularly think that OS is one of the bastions of computer science and thus I think it's a very interesting field, the authors totally missed their target audience insofar as design and layout is concerned! Additionally, this book is peculiar in that it tries to teach some OS examples using (of all possible languages) Java! What gives? Even my teacher (who usually defends this book) was upset about that one. And little by little the author manage to get a book you liked at the beginning of the semester into this horrendous text you don't even want to glance into. I gave three stars, because I do think that the content in the first five six chapters is really well explained and supported...overall...buy it if you must!

Well written, but overstuffed with unnecessary material
There are some good things to say about this book.It's written in clear, plain language, with helpful illustrations and code examples.Key terms are highlighted and defined concisely.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: Operating Systems    2. Computer Operating Systems    3. Computers    4. Computers - Operating Systems    5. Operating Systems - General    6. Computer Hardware & Operating Systems    7. Computers / Operating Systems / General    8. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Reviews (1)

Well written book with a lot of figures and diagram
This book was well written.I am a graduate computer science student, who rarely used this book, but when I had reviewed the book provided detail information.This book helps you understand a lot about the overall fundamentals of Computer-System Structure, Processes, Threads, CPU Scheduling, Synchronization, Deadlocks, and Memory Management. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Client-Server Computing - General    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Operating Systems    4. Computers    5. Computers - General Information    6. Operating Systems - General    7. Programming Languages - General    8. Programming Languages - Java    9. Computers / Operating Systems / General    10. Java & variants    11. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computers    3. Computers - Operating Systems    4. Operating Systems - General    5. Computer hardware & operating systems    6. Computers / Operating Systems / General    7. Operating systems & graphical user interfaces (GUIs)   

Reviews (3)

Well-Written Introductory Text
The book contains concepts and algorithms in the first half, and then lists (I think 3) distributed operating systems in the back as case studies. The book is very readable and entertaining, assuming you've had a course (or the equivalent) in (single machine) operating systems. Distributed Operating Systems
Good, I'm going to use it next semester and I hope to learn so much from it

The best Distributed Operating System book
If you know Andrew S. Tanembaum and know "Modern Operating Systems" you will like this book. It's a upgrade to Distributed Systems and more. You will need this! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Client-Server Computing - General    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Operating Systems    4. Computers - Communications / Networking    5. Distributed Computer Systems    6. Distributed operating systems    7. Distributed operating systems (Computers)    8. Networking - General    9. Operating Systems - General    10. Computer Hardware & Operating Systems    11. Computer Programming    12. Computers / Client-Server Computing   

Reviews (12)

Nice Introduction to Operating Systems
The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the basics of operating systems which includes memory manager, processor manager, file manager, device manager and network manager. This part is presented in such a way that it can be easily comprehended by even novices and the authors did an excellent job here. The second part of the book deals with specific operating systems. Details about MS-DOS, Windows 2000, UNIX, OpenVMS Alpha and OS/390 operating systems are provided in this part. While there are few locations where the explanation is not very clear, for the most part it is understandable.
Great Intro to a complicated subject
This book really hits the important info about a complicated subject. When I was studying OS in college, I didn't need to create operating systems, I needed to know what they're all about. This was the required book in my OS class and I could read and understand even the complicated stuff. It's a good starting place. This is one of only 2 textbooks that I didn't sell when I graduated. It's still a good reference. I highly recommend it.

Anemic, Obsolete, and Contains factual errors
When I received this book in the mail, I was curious as to why it was including a large section on MS-DOS. While there is historical and pedagogical justification for covering MS-DOS, the cover text claims that MS-DOS is one of "the three most widely-used operating systems". This statement is a bit dated. While MS-DOS may have formed the basis for early versions of MS-Windows, current versions are NT based. The book's discussion of the relationship between MS-DOS, Windows, and Windows-NT is a bit muddled.