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The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD OS

Posted by timothy on

n0dez writes "Peter H. Salus has written a review of The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System on UnixReview. "If you need to understand just how a kernel works, you need this book. McKusick and Neville-Neil have done the community a favor, and this book deserves to be a best seller." This book is an update to The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System by Marshall Kirk McKusick."

2 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Re:uhh.. by Money+for+Nothin' · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't know about this new FreeBSD-specific book, but the previous 4.4BSD book (also by McKusick, etc.) was a combination of code and design explanation. I didn't read the whole thing, but I used much of the book for a term paper about FreeBSD's design a year ago, and probably 80% or so of the book was design info, not code.

    That makes sense too -- after all, the code is bound to be changed sooner or later, making the book out of date, even though the same design principles may be in-use. This was a good move on McKusick's & Co's part, b/c much of the information they published back in 1996 still applies even today to FreeBSD 5.x (that said, 5.x is definitely a major change, particularly w.r.t. the process scheduler).

    Go to a university library if you want to find a copy without buying it. Most normal public libraries won't have a copy (alternatively, you can hang out at Borders or Barnes and Noble and browse through it there).

    Speaking from experience though, if you want a "book that explains the guts" without forcing you to read reams of code (and why would you? The source is available online for free to read instead!), then you want McKusick, etc.'s book (I imagine this new FreeBSD-specific book is similar to the 4.4BSD book).

    I looked hard (as in, for the better part of a semester) -- there simply is not a more-comprehensive BSD OS-design reference anywhere. And yes, I got an 'A' on my paper (updated from the 4.4BSD's era to include FreeBSD-specific info, including through FBSD-5.1, however). :)

    --

    Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
  2. Re:uhh.. by Calvinhood · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the most part the book presents the organization and major algorithms used in FreeBSD, and then presents the theory and rational behind the choice. It also presents some alternative implementations that could have been used and explains why they weren't.

    As far as code, I don't think there's a single line of it in the book.