
The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System, 2nd ed. - todd8
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Implementation-FreeBSD-Operating-Edition/dp/0321968972/ref=zg_bs_3756_28
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ChuckMcM
I have a very dog eared copy of the first edition and ordered this one. I also
bought a copy of the CS class that Kirk taught at UCB on VHS 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/

[2] www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-
Silberschatz/dp/1118063333/

~~~
kqr2
It looks like the lecture videos are still available, however, they are
somewhat expensive.

[https://www.mckusick.com/courses/index.html](https://www.mckusick.com/courses/index.html)

[https://www.mckusick.com/courses/introorderform.html](https://www.mckusick.com/courses/introorderform.html)

~~~
allegory
That's actually quite cheap as training materials go.

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mwcampbell
A DRM-free ebook is available here:

[http://www.informit.com/store/design-and-implementation-
of-t...](http://www.informit.com/store/design-and-implementation-of-the-
freebsd-operating-9780321968975)

~~~
omnibrain
Can anyone with an account please check how much shipping to germany costs? I
don't want to set up an account with another site just to check shipping
costs. I can get the book from Amazon but the Bok + eBook bundle informit
offers looks attractive, but it all depends on the shipping costs.

~~~
benjarrell
I tried with the shipping address to the German Parliment (taken from
[https://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/visits/hinweis](https://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/visits/hinweis))

Platz der Republik 1 Berlin 11011 Germany

International shipping -- $9.00

~~~
omnibrain
Thanks.

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craftkiller
The FreeBSD foundation is one of the charities that smile.amazon.com donates
to, so if you're not already using it, consider purchasing the booking through
smile.amazon.com so 0.5% of your purchase goes to them.

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aristus
I audited McKusick's kernel class at Berkeley extension. 8 hour sessions every
Saturday for a couple of months. I don't have a formal CS background but at
the time had 10-12 years of professional experience. It was the most useful
class I have ever taken, removing the magic behind the OS.

~~~
Someone1234
Was that online?

~~~
KedarMhaswade
You can register here:
[https://www.mckusick.com/courses/introinterestform.html](https://www.mckusick.com/courses/introinterestform.html)
and if you are not in the Bay Area, you could buy the videos.

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jrapdx3
As a long-time user of FBSD (since 4.x), the book looks like it's quite
comprehensive. Keeping up with all the recent changes is difficult, and this
detailed reference covers an impressive range of topics (as far as I can
determine from the preview), particularly newer and updated features like the
Capsicum framework, security features, ZFS, geom among others.

One disappointment is the book doesn't have much to say about UEFI and Secure
Boot, which will be important to easily integrate FBSD with other systems on
current PC hardware. Understandable though, as they're still in development
and the authors not yet ready to discuss it.

For an 800+ page book the price is rather modest. Looks like one that will
have to go on my "must get" list.

~~~
gonzo
UEFI just went into FreeBSD (it _might_ make 10.1-RELEASE)

In other words: it's too early.

~~~
cperciva
UEFI is in 10.1-BETA1, so I think it's safe to assume that it will be in
10.1-RELEASE. ;-)

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przemoc
I was never into FreeBSD (I hoped to dive into it more in the past, but never
done so sadly), but heard that 1st ed was really good, so the revised version
quite likely shouldn't be any worse (hopefully even better). I would order it,
but there are still many technical books on my shelf waiting for my attention,
thus adding another one will not help in that matter.

One thing is sure, even if you're not into FreeBSD, broadening your
perspective is never wrong. So I may eventually order it in the future.

~~~
umanwizard
FreeBSD combined with this book is great for learning about operating systems
in general, regardless of whether you care about FreeBSD specifically. The
book goes into a lot of detail about why certain design decisions were made,
and how things are implemented in other operating systems.

If you're already studied some other OS in general, you might not need this
book, but if you haven't, this is a great place to start.

~~~
KedarMhaswade
Thanks! Do you think it's useful to get this one even if you have used Linux
almost exclusively? Will it make it easier for one to get into Kernel
development?

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umanwizard
Sure. But it's worth having a FreeBSD box (or VM) that you can use to tinker
with the kernel.

Recompiling FreeBSD kernel source is super easy, by the way. It comes in
/usr/src on your machine and all you need to do to reinstall one with your
changes is "make buildkernel && make installkernel" . Actually understanding
the sometimes decades-old source code, on the other hand, might be a little
more difficult...

~~~
KedarMhaswade
How'd you compare this with Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love and/or
Bovet/Cesati, especially for someone who's a newbie (but curious to learn and
work hard)?

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jonaldomo
For those of you who get to use this knowledge in your day to day jobs what
kind of things are you working on?

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lsllc
My copy arrived yesterday. A real old-school textbook; reminds me of the days
of poring over "Modern Operating Systems" in college!

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incision
Mine arrived yesterday.

The size and heft of the print book is a welcome surprise, it's something that
you could toss in a bag and hold to read without support (2.7 lbs,
9.4x6.4x1.4) - relevant for something that will eventually be shelved among
stuff like "The Linux Programming Interface" (5 lbs, 9.5x7.2x2.3)

~~~
Rapzid
TLPI is my favourite book(technical book I own). Sometimes I look over at it
and think "Man, what a great book". I'm very tempted to purchase this as well
:)

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nomadlogic
These books are pretty much a must read for anyone interested in the internals
of Unix-type systems. I keep them right next to my TCP/IP Illustrated volumes,
I reckon it's always good to have good reference material handy - especially
when it is well written and researched.

~~~
danso
You sold me. I'm not particularly interested in knowing enough about FreeBSD
to diagnose anything non-trivial, but I am interested in learning about design
decisions behind operating systems.

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samuel
This book is great, even if you don't use FreeBSD. I remember that I learnt
how a TLB/MMU really works by reading this book, and not on an Operating
Systems lecture.

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snlacks
Would HN-commenters recommend this (based off of experience with either
edition) over other OS books for a self-teaching CS Curriculum?

Do you agree that picking one OS to study is the best way to learn about
Operating Systems generally?

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kasperset
This should also help you:
[http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/)

~~~
snlacks
Wow! Thank you.

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michaelsbradley
Is there a comparable, relatively up-to-date book for Linux?

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incision
Not exactly.

What really sets this book apart, in my opinion, is just how readable it is. I
haven't run across anything with quite the same combination of style and depth
for Linux.

You could read through something like The Linux Programming Interface [1] or
Understanding the Linux Kernel [2] and with effort extract much of the same
information, but without the pace/structure/commentary that I think this book
does so well.

Thing is, _conceptually_ much of what you'll read in this book will be
applicable to Linux just fine and having read it will make it far easier to
grok how/where the two differ.

1: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1593272200](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1593272200)
2: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596005652](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596005652)

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pkaye
What are the major changes from the 1st edition? I had bought the old one just
a few months back...

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rdc12
Has anything important from the first edition been omitted from the second?

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cms07
The first edition is quite good. I'm sure the 2nd is just as good.

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cbd1984
It seems odd that this book is only about the kernel, given that the BSD camp
has always said that an advantage of a BSD over Linux is that a BSD is the
whole package, from the GUI and command shell on down, whereas Linux is 'just'
the kernel, and relies on distros to be usable.

~~~
kev009
The userland would be harder to write a long lasting book on. It's prone to
change between major version numbers.. for instance clang/c++ RT/etc. It would
be cool to see a volume on this stuff, but it would probably need a ton of
authors and be more like a series of exposes (thinking a book like
Architecture of Open Source Applications)

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muhahahaehh
Don't forget:
[http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/)

~~~
darkandbrooding
Oh man, now you've triggered my OCD and I feel pedantic.

[https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/](https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/)

