Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition | 
 enlarge | Authors: Daniel Bovet, Marco Cesati
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $49.95
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Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 42270
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Pages: 942
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.8 x 1.7
ISBN: 0596005652
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.432
EAN: 9780596005658
Publication Date: November 17, 2005
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Product Description
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 the kernel 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 A detailed and comprehensive explanation of the inner workings of the latest 2.6 Linux kernel February 10, 2006
Asterios Papadimitriou (Kavala, Greece)
37 out of 37 found this review helpful
The book "Undestanding the Linux Kernel",
explains clearly the inner workings of the
current 2.6 Linux kernel.
The presentation is at a considerable level of detail,
the authors fully describe the important data structures,
and the significant chunks of code.
The book is indispensable to any serious
Linux kernel developer.
However, it can be used also at the context
of an "Operating Systems Design" academic course
and the students can learn a lot from the
technologically advanced Linux 2.6 kernel implementation
and can modify/recompile and install their own version!
The level of the book is advanced and I recommend
concurrently with it, the reader to study also the
book:
"Linux kernel development" by Robert Love
that presents the algorithms also very clearly,
but with a more academic view,
without zooming to all the implementation concerns.
I own both books and by studing them, I can have
the significant experience of customizing the source code
of the superior Linux 2.6 kernel.
Excellent, but not for beginners August 2, 2006
J. Goudsmit (Mesa, AZ, USA)
27 out of 27 found this review helpful
Understanding the Linux Kernel is an excellent guide for those who have some experience using Linux, and would like to know what's going on under the hood. It's a comprehensive guide that not only describes how Linux boots and initializes itself, and how programs call functions inside the kernel, but actually goes down to the murky depths of interrupts, process switching, inter-process communication, and even memory management down to the level of the 80x86 processor instructions, registers and features (actually if you add it all up, memory management takes up most of the book -- a good thing!). Furthermore there are chapters about essentials such as file systems and device drivers.
The book specifically and explicitly focuses only on the 80x86 PC architecture so if you're interested in Linux on different platforms or if you're looking for a generic Linux kernel book, this one's not for you. Also, if you're just starting out with Linux (whether it be as user, programmer or administrator), there's a lot of information in here that you don't really need to know.
An important part of the kernel that's missing from the book is how networking is implemented. This is understandable, because it would probably require another 900+ pages (that's how thick this one is) to cover in as much detail as what the book DOES cover.
All in all, as an intermediate Linux administrator/user and a novice Linux programmer, I thought this was an excellent addition to my collection, even though I skipped some of the truely low-level parts where the authors go into Pentium registers and stuff like that. The fact that "80x86" is consistently printed as "80 86" (notice the multiplication character replacing the letter "x") was not enough of a nuisance to take away any of the 5 stars that I'm giving this one.
A Valuable Resource November 30, 2005
Jerry Cooperstein (Madison, WI)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
The third edition of this valuable resource incorporates descriptions of the latest changes in the 2.6 Linux kernel series. There is simply nothing else out there resembling this work in either depth or breadth, and as such every developer active in Linux kernel work (or trying to understand how it all fits together) needs to have this book.
While there are a few other books out there that describe the Linux kernel on a conceptual level (a very few of which have quality), there is really nothing (recently) that examines the actual code at this level of detail (each edition keeps getting fatter.)
As academics the authors are interested in presenting a complete snapshot of the Linux kernel, and unravelling how it works. This is unlike in method (but complementary to) the engineer's approach of its excellent companion book from O'Reilly, Linux Device Drivers, by Corbet, Rubini and Kroah-Hartmann. They also focus more on the x86 architecture in order to be definite. Because of its focus on being an entire picture, understanding this book doesn't require extensive pre-knowledge of the Linux kernel, only a good general grasp of principles.
I have used the earlier editions as companion textbooks for classes on the Linux kernel, and intend on using this edition in the same fashion. Don't miss out on this unique book.
Sorry, Charlie December 17, 2005
Robert Hentosh (Round Rock, TX USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Charlie Black complained (on December 2nd) that inotify was not in the index of this kernel book. Sorry, books take time to publish. inotify was not in the kernel till version 2.6.13, which was just 3 months before the book was published and available.
Linux kernel development is a moving target and it takes more than a few months to publish any book, let alone one of this magnitude.
I am just purchasing this book. I have found version 1 and 2 invaluable. The kernel is huge and the other versions have done an excelent job of covering as much as possible in one book.
If you are interested in inotify, then you can do a web search and find the introductory article written by Robert Love in LJ.
No Kernel debugging :( February 12, 2006
Nitin Gupta (India, Delhi)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
One thing that's really missing is a nice chapter on Kernel debugging -- using some existing kernel debuggers and how they all compare, interpreting those OOPS messages -- everything that goes with kernel hacking!
This book covers VMM so comprehensively that it's really meant for those who _actually_ want to work on kernel, so a 'Kernel Hacking' chapter was a must.
Otherwise this book is just perfect - I give it 5 stars :)
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