Book reviews

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 11:56 am

I am considering buying two books by andrew s. tanenbaum: operating systems: design and implementation, and modern operating systems.

The thing is that it is infact a rather big investment for me and i havent been able to find a lot of reviews, so if you got something to say, please do so.

Thanks.

NB. other book recomendations are also welcome.

Alboin · Post by **Alboin** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:16 pm

I would say not to buy them unless you have some spare change around. They're not really that awesome, unless you don't feel like doing your own research online.

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 3:04 pm

okay then, thats good o know, but what are the alternatives?

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:56 pm

this isnt completely about OS dev, but an incredibly useful book (as least for me) is called "The Indespensable PC Hardware Book" by Hans-Peter Messmer. Gets very technical about the PCI bus and bios32, and also goes into different architectues of various buses and processors.

Another really good one, by Tenenbaum (i think) is called "Developing your own 32-bit Operating System".

If you can ever get your hands on it, I have heard that "MINIX" by Tenenbaum is an incredible read for OS deving. I myself have never been able to find an affordable one (under $150). That would deffinately be my next buy if I see it in the double digits.

Alboin · Post by **Alboin** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:06 pm

01000101 wrote:this isnt completely about OS dev, but an incredibly useful book (as least for me) is called "The Indespensable PC Hardware Book" by Hans-Peter Messmer. Gets very technical about the PCI bus and bios32, and also goes into different architectues of various buses and processors.

dito.

01000101 wrote:Another really good one, by Tenenbaum (i think) is called "Developing your own 32-bit Operating System".

No, no, no! That is not a Tanenbaum book! In fact, I've heard a lot of bad reviews on that book.

01000101 wrote:If you can ever get your hands on it, I have heard that "MINIX" by Tenenbaum is an incredible read for OS deving. I myself have never been able to find an affordable one (under $150). That would deffinately be my next buy if I see it in the double digits.

Minix is the operating system that is used\described in Tanenbaum's OSDAI. I don't believe 'MINIX' is actually a book on it's own...

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:43 pm

hmm... oppinions seems to differ a great deal here.

Learning the basics to OS development of course isnt easy, but i would never have tought it would be tis hard to compile a list of literature on the subject.

Every site on the net, regarding programing has a FAQ/book reviews but people never seems to agree on which book are good and not and when you finaly pick a few that seems to be the right choice, people disagrees...

Well thats life i guess

01000101 · Post by **01000101** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:56 pm

it all depends on what you intend to use the book for. If you are doing conceptual or theoretical learning then your taste will differ from that of someone that is trying to write a good memory manager in assembly.

The Indespensable PC Hardware Book, is full of nitty-gritty scematics and such, while a book like Developing Your Own 32-Bit OS is more of a 3rd person perspective on setting up GDT's all while keeping very general and conceptual.

What I would recommend honestly, is to chose like this:
Do I know the theory of what I want to program?
if yes, then go with a more technical book like The Indispensable...

Do I know how IO works and have good general low-level programming skills?
Then go with a more general book that can guide you with theories and a top-down view of OS design.

JackScott · Post by **JackScott** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:40 am

I can only say good things about nitty-gritty hardware books. While I don't own The Indespensible PC Hardware Book, I have looked at it, and it seems impressive. I also own Upgrading and Repairing PCs,which is the same sort of thing and I love it to bits.

I've read a couple of Tanenbaum's books. I did enjoy reading Distributed Operating Systems. It seemed to cover the theory of not only distributed but also more general OS concepts. Unfortunately, it seemed a bit vague sometimes: It just presented you with the options, and did nothing with them. Basically, it didn't have any concrete stuff in it like code or numbers. If it's cheap, I reccomend it.

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:17 am

ok, i guess mt discribtion was a bit vague.
What i need, first of all, is a book which discribes/explains in details all the basic concepts you need to know in order to program your own OS.
I am also interested in how different architectures works regarding this.

As allways code examples are preferably in ASM.

Of course there is no one book which has it all, but i hope that not too many books are required.

I do not need a guide for programming an OS, only an indept axplanation of the thing i cannot go without knowing.

babernat · Post by **babernat** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:46 pm

Modern Operating Systems was the required book for the OS class I took my last semester of college. It's fair. I covers concepts and leaves out the nitty gritty. I'd get it only if its cheap.

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:26 pm

and by nitty gritty you mean?

JackScott · Post by **JackScott** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:29 pm

I was going to suggest using urban dictionary, but that says nitty gritty is all about sex.

'to get down to the fine details of' might be a good way of putting it.

babernat · Post by **babernat** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:36 pm

Yayyak wrote:I was going to suggest using urban dictionary, but that says nitty gritty is all about sex.

'to get down to the fine details of' might be a good way of putting it.

My poor choice of words. What I mean is it won't tell you how to build an OS. It seems like the book was written as kind of survey of concepts. If you need information on a topic, then its OK for that, but if you want to figure out how to implement or use a concept, then you had better look someplace else.

I referenced it a lot for the class, but I have yet to pull it out since I've started doing stuff on my own.

Does that help?

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 10:33 pm

indeed it does, thank you for the clarification.

Dex · Post by **Dex** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 6:05 am

First i do not think any OS dev book's are ASM based.
Also this link http://alexfru.narod.ru/emiscdocs.html
If you look under OS Dev, there's some OS Dev ebooks.