Unix Internals
by Uresh Vahalia · first published 1995
75% recommend25% neutral
Why HN recommends it
In-depth tour of Unix kernel internals such as processes, memory, file systems and I/O; rated highly as a companion to Bach and the FreeBSD book for working engineers who want to understand the kernel's design.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…depth: - The Design of the UNIX Operating System by Maurice Bach (1986) - The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System, 2nd Edition by McKusick, Neville-Neil, and Watson (2014) - UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers by Uresh Vahalia (1996) (note that this book covers the implementations of Unix variants that were contemporary in 1996)
on “Ask HN: Is Minix dead? No commits since 2018” ↗In a response to the ZFS/FreeBSD VFS thread [1], I got to wondering, is there a modern (text)book on Unix internals, similar in scope to the excellent Unix Internals: The New Frontiers [2]? The Vahalia was scheduled for a second revision, but it never happened. Given that there are now fewer Unixes (if many more copies),…
on “Ask HN: A good modern Unix internals book -- does it exist?” ↗If you want to learn how operating systems work, you need very, very little computer science and math. A book such as “UNIX Internals” (https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Internals-Frontiers-Uresh-Vahali...) should be a good start (just quickly browsed it. It seems it’s 100% free of formulas, supporting my claim you need very little math)…
on “How do I best fill in the gaps in my math knowledge?” ↗Although it's not a book, the Linux documentation [1] is actually very good and does the job of explaining design and architecture of the kernel. I'd also suggest reading "Unix Internals" by Uresh Vahalia. While this book is from 1995 and it doesn't cover Linux specifically, it's an exceptional resource for understanding how *nix kernels work in general. [1] https://docs.kernel.org/
on “Learning modern Linux: A handbook for the cloud native practitioner” ↗I remember reading those books (ok, it was the 4.3 BSD edition instead of 4.4) alongside Bach's "The Design of the Unix Operating System" and Uresh Vahalia's "UNIX internals: the new frontiers" (1996). I recommend "UNIX internals". It's very good and not as well known as the others.
on “Windows NT vs. Unix: A design comparison” ↗…definitely helps to read this in parallel with a study in number theory, combinatorics, etc) Anatomy of Lisp. The art of the meta-object protocol. Out of the inner circle. The Soul of a new Machine. Unix Internals, the new frontiers. Effective C++. SICP. More recently, I found the C# specification a page turner. Easy to read, and almost every section made me think about why they chose to do things different…
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗…highly recommend "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD operating System". I have read several operating systems book classics including the book by Silbershatz and Galvin that you referred to and "Unix Internals" by Maurice Bach and the "Magic Garden Explained". I found the Design and Implementation of the BSD operating system much more readable and getting into details at just the right level.
on “Best books, courses to learn fundamental concepts on Operating Systems?” ↗This was very interesting, thanks. Sorta-OT, I wonder if there's a modern equivalent of Vahalia's Unix Internals: The New Frontiers [1]? [1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337378.UNIX_Internals
on “Complexity of FreeBSD VFS using ZFS as an example” ↗…dramatically over the years, and so studying the design and implementation of older, smaller implementations of Unix-like operating systems can aid with figuring out the code base of Linux, which is huge. - UNIX Internals: The New Frontier (1996) by Uresh Vahalia. This discusses some more modern features that weren't part of AT&T Unix. - The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System (2014) by Marshall…
on “Ask HN: Recommended resources to learn the Linux kernel and OS theory?” ↗Fiction: Carl Sagan - Contact Non-fiction: Uresh Vahalia - Unix Internals
on “Ask HN: What are you reading? What've you read lately?” ↗…Cracking the coding interview 5. Computer Vision/Image Processing - ? 6. Javascript, Python, Java, Ruby, Perl, C++, NodeJS, Go - ? 7. Design Patterns - ? 8. Distributed Systems - ? 9. Operating Systems - (Unix Internals by Bach, ?) 10. Networking - ? 11. Website Development/Scalability - ? 12. Fonts/Typography - ? 13. Database Systems - ? 14. AWS - ? 15. Build Systems - ? 16. Website design - ? 17. Photoshop, Indesign…
on “Ask HN: Best books on various CS related topics?” ↗