Cover of Operating System Concepts

Operating System Concepts

by Abraham Silberschatz · first published 1988

59mentions
26recommended by
54HN commenters
2010–2025first – last mentioned

48% recommend50% neutral2% critical

Why HN recommends it

Approachable OS textbook covering processes, threads, concurrency, syscalls and filesystems, with case studies comparing real systems' design choices; suits self-taught programmers and students wanting OS fundamentals.

Summarised by Claude from recommending comments

Keep pace with the fast–developing world of operating systems Open–source operating systems, virtual machines, and clustered computing are among the leading fields of operating systems and networking that are rapidly changing. With substantial revisions and organizational changes, Silberschatz, Galvin, and Gagne’s Operating System Concepts, Eighth Edition remains as current and relevant as ever, helping you master the fundamental concepts of operating systems while preparing yourself for today’s emerging developments. As in the past, the text brings you up to speed on core knowledge and skills

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Mentions per year

70 2007: 0 mentions2008: 0 mentions2009: 0 mentions2010: 2 mentions2011: 2 mentions2012: 7 mentions2013: 1 mention2014: 7 mentions2015: 6 mentions2016: 5 mentions2017: 3 mentions2018: 1 mention2019: 3 mentions2020: 3 mentions2021: 2 mentions2022: 5 mentions2023: 6 mentions2024: 2 mentions2025: 2 mentions2026: 0 mentions200720172026

What Hacker News says

  • robomartin · Nov 26, 2012 · Recommends

    …holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way" --Mark Twain. Here's the tip of the tail: http://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Controller-Forth-8051-Family/... http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Silb... http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Preemptive-Multitasking-Mi... http://www.amazon.com/Design-Operating-System-Prentice-Hall-... Have fun.

    on “I’m writing my own OS” ↗
  • acomjean · Jun 12, 2018 · Recommends

    …https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU I still miss HPUX RTE for PARISC(Real Time Extensions) for sending jobs to specific processors or processor sets, disabling interupts.... If you like OSs. I like the case studies in the dinosaur book: (stupid text-book prices though....) [4] https://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Sil...

    on “Linux is Obsolete (1992)” ↗
  • robomartin · Nov 27, 2012 · Recommends

    …http://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Software-Primer-David-Simon/d... 31- http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Embedded-Systems-C/dp/1565... 32- http://www.amazon.com/Making-Embedded-Systems-Patterns-Softw... 33- http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Silb... 34- http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Preemptive-Multitasking-Mi... 35- http://www.amazon.com/Design-Operating-System-Prentice-Hall-... 36- http://www.amazon.com/Unix-Network-Programming-Sockets-Netwo...…

    on “I’m writing my own OS” ↗
  • samdalton · Apr 6, 2011 · Recommends

    …in the first book, and expands on it while adding clarification. It does lack a lot of story that the original contained, so it's not a complete replacement however. While I think of it, there's also Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Gagne and Galvin - http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Windows-Upda.... It's an extremely detailed look at how operating systems work, down to the lowest level, and it explains…

    on “Must Read CS Books For Self Self-Taught Programmers” ↗
  • ChuckMcM · Sep 17, 2014 · Recommends

    …video tape back when I was at NetApp. I sort of think of three books as being core of a curriculum understanding operating systems, this book, "The Design of the UNIX Operating System"[1] by Bach, and "Operating System Concepts" by Silbershatz. Owning and understanding those three texts will give you everything you need to know about working in the kernel and designing your own OS code. [1] www.amazon.com/Design-UNIX-Operating-System/dp/0132017997/…

    on “The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System, 2nd ed.” ↗
  • randcraw · Nov 22, 2016 · Recommends

    …Aho, Ullman, Sethi, Lam "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach", by Russell, Norvig "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", by Patterson, Hennessy "Computer Networks", by Tannenbaum "Operating System Concepts", by Silberschatz

    on “Ask HN: What are the bibles of Computer Science?” ↗
  • mgbmtl · Mar 26, 2020 · Recommends

    "Operating System Concepts" by Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne, is a classic. It covers the basics: processes, syscalls, filesystems. (it's what we read in our OS course in university)

    on “Show HN: A “living” Linux process with no memory” ↗
  • mindcrime · Aug 23, 2012 · Recommends

    …Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine by Charles Petzold Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson and Gerald Sussman Hacker's Delight by Henry S. Warren Operating System Concepts by Abraham Silberschatz Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest and Clifford Stein One (or more) of the Algorithms in FOO series by Robert Sedgewick.…

    on “Steps to become a good hacker?” ↗
  • tristor · Sep 8, 2021 · Recommends

    …UNIX Network Programming: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0131411551 Beej's Guide to Network Programming: http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/ Operating Systems: Operating Systems Concepts: https://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Sil... (various editions, I have the 7th edition... I recommend you find the latest) Modern Operating Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Operating-Systems-Andrew-Tanen... (the "Tanenbaum…

    on “My £4 a month server can handle 4.2M requests a day” ↗
  • Jarihd · Oct 1, 2012 · Recommends

    …make changes; build and deploy and observe what happens. EDIT: if you have no prior knowledge of OS Theory and Fundamentals; then you should start here first - read either of the following books 1) Operating System Concepts by Galvin, Silberschatz OR 2)Modern Operating Systems by Tanenbaum For programming related - system calls and stuff read 1) Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment - by Richard Stevens

    on “Linux 3.6 released” ↗
  • mvanga · Oct 8, 2012 · Recommends

    …Systems was a tad light on some of the core topics (especially when trying to get a good grip on the issues behind concurrency). I personally recommend the book by Silberschatz: http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Silb... I also think for understanding how operating systems work, nothing beats writing your own! I learned most of the concepts by building a toy OS during the better part of my undergraduate…

    on “The software development final exam: Algorithms and Data Structures” ↗
  • tinco · Jul 7, 2014 · Recommends

    …pick one of them up as your secondary language. Also read a few of the good books you would get to read if you had done a university. IMO read "Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach" by Kurose, and "Operating System Concepts" by Silberschatz. Unlike most CS books these are very practical and easy to read. If you'd really like some more heady stuff, try "Computer Algorithms" by Van Gelder. Although it's sort of out of fashion…

    on “Ask HN: Chances for Restarting a Career in CS @ 30+ ?” ↗
  • 3minus1 · Oct 17, 2015 · Recommends

    Textbooks can be good for this kind of thing. We read Operating System Concepts by Abraham Silberschatz in an OS class I took and it has a whole chapter on threads.The entire book is actually really good, each chapter reads like an essay discussing the topic in a natural way.

    on “Ask HN: What's the one thing you've always wanted to learn?” ↗
  • de107549 · Jul 23, 2016 · Recommends

    There were different book that impacted different stages of my career: As a programmer : 1. The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup. 2. Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz 3. Compilers by Aho As an agile software developer: 1. eXtreme Programming by Kent Beck 2. Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas 3. Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble As an architect:…

    on “Ask HN: What three books impacted your career the most?” ↗
  • ChuckMcM · Nov 26, 2012 · Recommends

    …the ride, they can surprise you if you under estimate them. So assuming this person notes that they are getting a ton of traffic from HN, and comes here to investigate, my three suggested books are : Operating System Concepts [1], Operating System Implementation [2], and The Design of UNIX [3]. Preferably in that order. Any decent college library should have all three in the stacks. [1] www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Seventh-Edition/dp/0471694665/…

    on “I’m writing my own OS” ↗

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