magnificent discussion of internal architecture of UNIX | Design of the UNIX Operating System

A model for how technical books should be written | Design of the UNIX Operating System | Maurice J. Bach

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	• Design of the UNIX Operating System Maurice J. Bach Prentice Hall PTR, 1986 - 486 pages average customer review:based on 23 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Definitive guide for UNIX internals

This book is for anyone who wants to know what happens "under the hood" in a UNIX based operating system. I especially like the pseudocode given for various system calls and other important kernel functions. The exercises given at the end of chapters are thought provoking. This book is not about how to learn/work in UNIX. Some of the topics such as streams may not be relevant in some of the current implementations of UNIX (or clones of UNIX), but most of the book is still relevant.

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 The material is assuredly out of date, but I dare you to critize, say, Lions as being "out of date" (whether or not it describes a 25-year-old, 9K-LOC kernel, it is a scripture of paramount importance, a cornerstone of my computer engineering [n.b.: I didn't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).

For those who are wont to compare Leffler and Bach--if for no other reason than that they are coevals--I heartily endorse Bach over its competitor. It's nice. It's clean. It's precise. You just couldn't ask for more. And, BTW, stay away from "The Magic Garden." I'm not sure that five hundred pages worth of out-of-context code excerpts, inundating the reader with thousands of kernel variables, accomplishes much by way of imparting conceptual understanding.

(I'm reminded: a customer of mine--an older gentleman with a Ph.D. in physics--once asked me for a concise description of the workings of UNIX, something that introduced the basic concepts at a scholarly but not overweight level. I told him I had a recommendation in mind. "You're going to give me 'The Magic Garden'," John complained; "Don't bother. It stinks!" Was John ever surprised when I pointed him to the third entry in Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems series. It has concise thirty or forty-page entries on UNIX, MS-DOS, and a handful of others. For those who want to know--from a scientist's viewpoint--what the fundamentals of the UNIX OS and superjacent environment are, what it can do, how one navigates within it, etc., at a _conceptual_ level that trucks not with the details of Bach or Leffler, seek ye Tanenbaum II.)

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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.

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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!

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The pinacle of OS books

I'm something of an OS freak (not an expert though) and I collect OS books. I've read many of the classics of the field but I think this book is the crowning achievement of OS literature. Here are the arguments to support my claim:

a) It does not go into explaining general OS theory, thus all space can be dedicated to explaining the details of one operating system (Unix System V Release 2). This of course makes it unsuitable for begginers as it assumes you have a good understanding of basic concepts like race conditions, mutual exclusion, data structures, etc. If you're a begginer don't buy this book yet; get "Operating Systems - Design and Implementation" by Tanenbaum & Woodhull or "Operating System Concepts" by Silberschatz, Galvin and Baer.

b) It details EVERY algorithm with C-like pseudocode and adds verbal explanations exemplifying operations running through the algorithms. This is unlike other OS books which sometimes just give general descriptions of algorithms with no examples.

c) Explanations are complemented by many diagrams of data structures in various states of manipulation by the algorithms. This is possibly the most valuable feature of the book as it does wonders to help you understand what the kernel is doing; you get to 'see' how the algorithms work. This sets it apart from practically all other OS books I've read that just mention in passing "... then function 'x' manipulates data structure 'y'" and leave you to find out the implications of these manipulations. Diagrams also make the book superior to mere code listings.

d) Each chapter 'uses' the algorithms explained in the previous chapter to explain higher level functionality. This is much unlike other OS books which are just unstructured and make you loose the big picture of how the various pieces fit together. Chapters also start with an introductory overall view of the current topic.

So, what is not to like about this book? The only thing I can think of is that it deals with a 'dead' OS. Unix System V only runs in a handful of computer installations these days (if any), while its derivatives have changed too much to serve as a reference while reading the book. Still, System V binaries and source are available on the internet, legally of course. Search for The Unix Heritage Society archives. If you want to get really hardcore you can even get a PDP-11 emulator and set up Sys V in it. There are, of course, other books that delve into present day operating systems; "Solaris Internals" , for instance.

Also, Unix-haters might point out this is just another book on Unix. Well, unfortunately there are no books that explain, say MS Windows, at this level of detail; blaim MS. But still, while dealing with the specifics of one single OS, you do get a general understanding of how other OS's might work.

In my humble opinion this book is the 'King of the Hill' of OS literature; it has helped me finally understand things like context switching and memory mapping. An absolute feast to read, particularly if you like Unix.

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This is the first, and still, the most comprehensive book to describe the sophisticated workings of the UNIX System V kernel--the internal algorithms, the structures that form the basis of the UNIX operating system, and their relationship to the programming interface. System programmers will gain a better understanding of how the kernel works and will be able to compare algorithms used in the UNIX system to algorithms used in other operating systems. Programmers on UNIX systems will gain a deeper understanding of how their programs interact with the system and can thereby code more efficient programs.

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