

Ask YC: Any good online resources on the Linux kernel? - Jd

I've recently made the transition from the Windows world to full-time Linux usage and am finding myself increasingly curious as to how it all works. Are there any good primers on Linux kernel design or historical accounts of how the OS came together? I'm primarily looking for things that are available in digital format, as at the moment I'm not able to acquire additional paper products.
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neilc
Kernel Newbies (<http://kernelnewbies.org/>) has a lot of information on
kernel hacking. There's a list of recommended books on kernel internals:

<http://kernelnewbies.org/KernelBooks>

Including an online book on writing Linux device drivers:

<http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/>

And on the Linux virtual memory subsystem:

[http://www.phptr.com/content/images/0131453483/downloads/gor...](http://www.phptr.com/content/images/0131453483/downloads/gorman_book.pdf)

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aston
_Worse is Better_ is a good discussion of the philosophy of Unix, which
definitely plays into the development of Linux.

<http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html>

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SirWart
The best beginning to end book is probably Understanding the Linux Kernel, 3rd
edition (you can buy it online at . It covers a lot of operating system
concepts and how they are implemented in the kernel. At some point you'll want
to look at the source code, and the best way to do this is using the Linux
Cross Reference, found at <http://lxr.linux.no/> .

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tuukkah
For the OS, there's <http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/>

For the kernel, Wikipedia seems to have a good introduction and external
links: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel>

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Jd
Browsed through the wiki article, but it is difficult to find (anywhere?)
structured comparisons of OS design philosophies.

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jey
If you want a good discussion on OS design, get Andrew Tanenbaum's book
"Operating Systems: Design and Implementation". He's the MINIX guy, and that
book is pretty much the de facto standard text on operating systems. It's
expensive, so see if you can find an international edition. I picked mine up
for the equivalent of USD $10 in India.

