Linux Kernel Development

The book was in excellent condition, and the purchase arrived on time. It a bit old book, but still provides excellent technical overview on Linux kernel basic principles. An excellent read.

This is a good primer on one of the most complex pieces of software out there. Not sure of the prereq background... probably a solid understanding of C including threading models in UNIX and also basic Linux sysadmin, such as knowing how to find or download the headers for your distro. If you have that down, all the other pieces are probably there. This book is mostly prose. Full functions or even snippets are rare. Kind of different for a non academic book. It's easy to read as it doesn't get bogged down with examples that need to be studied. In fact, after having read it, I wish more practical programming books would do this. Only one minor complaint. There are too many footnotes that aren't footnotes. "Wood stoves had previously burned wood. A homeowner would generally provide the fuel. Steps are fall a tree, cut the wood into manageable pieces, and properly dry the wood... Today we mostly use gas or electric." It seemed these little guys were all over the place.

This is a solid book, well worth the purchase price and the time to read it if you want to know the kernel (particularly 2.6.30) in reasonable detail. You really should have the equivalent understanding of a bog-standard undergraduate OS theory class first, though. It's particularly good on the issues of multi-core/multithreaded processors (which are just a special case of SMP, after all). There's basically nothing about the unique aspects of embedded Linux, though (other than a brief description of JFFS2 and a couple of other flash filesystems), so if that's what you're doing, the book is a good intro but you're going to need another book afterward. Gripes: The book is a bit schizophrenic in its expectations of its readers: time, pages, and grams of weight :) are wasted on quickly reiterating some basic OS theory (mutexes, standard deadlock, preemption) that should be very old hat to anybody who is going to be actually doing kernel work. I would have appreciated more on kernel debugging philosophy and tricks, but what is there is good. A fair number of .h files are included in their entirety. IMHO they should have been editted down to just the fields relevant to the discussion in the text; we have The Source when we need the entire .h. It's probably more x86-centric than it really needs to be, but that's certainly a venial sin at most, since the vast majority of non-embedded Linux boxen do run x86. Gripes notwithstanding, this book is a real service to the community. Thanks, Mr. Love.

I wish I had this book when I was going through my Operating Systems undergrad class, or any time after that, but I'm glad I finally discovered it. It clears up so much about Linux that is usually just glossed over in a lot of other documentation. It goes into enough depth to make diving into kernel-level or system-level code less overwhelming. It also does a lot to explain topics that are just Extremely clearly written, with a good amount of detail but not too much. Not only is this a map for many workings of the Linux kernel, but also a great primer to many broader aspects of computer science that relate to the kernel and its functions, such as various data structures, algorithms, mathematical concepts, etc. Even if I wasn't working directly with the Linux kernel, I would be very happy to have read this book and have it in my bookshelf as a reference.

Linux is one of these moving targets. Books keep getting out dated.. every day. They have tried to include all the changes in page cache, elevator upto date. It is a very good read for any one who is interested in the linux kernel. If you dont have enough time to read all the release notes and follow mailing lists, this is one concise book to read and understand the 2.6.30+ version of Linux. Very very easy to read, most of them are explained verbally than with code samples. Lot of books waste print space by simply publishing code snippets from the kernel.. Worth the price. Even available in Kindle. There are some formatting issues in kindle, but very well presented most of time. Happy reading

This is the best book in my opinion for learning about the kernel! Even if you are doing driver development or just embedded system work, I highly recommend this as the text for learning the linux kernel. It goes over the scheduler, how processes are represented, memory management, devices, system calls, and many kernel data structures. Each topic is covered quite well with relevant CODE and information. Very straight-forward. He does an amazing job of explaining the modular structure of kernel and how most things are implemented as modules / pseudo-objects. Really gives the tools you need to know to be an effective developer. This book helps me understand the dryer, wordier, less clear, out-of-date, Linux Device Drivers. Full disclosure: have not completely finished reading the book, but I am more than a third the way through!

I was shopping for a good overview reference book of the Linux kernel, I did not want too much depth into each component, what I wanted was a "brief" overview of all the different components. If you're looking for depth into each module, then this is not the book for you. If you're interested in Linux and want a good overview book that you can finish quickly and have a working knowledge of the different components and how they tie in together then this is a great piece. I think "Linux Device Drivers" by Corbet is a better reference if your interest is strictly device driver and "Understanding Linux Networking Internals" by Benvenuti is better if you want to know more about the IP stack. Overall Robert Love goes through kernel development at a great level for an overview with just enough depth and enough examples. I use the book not every day but I often have it on my desk for reference.

This book is a great book, but it has a limited scope. So it is not a programmers reference, and it should not be bought with that in mind. However, this is a great high level discussion of the kernel and its implementation. And what really makes it great is the fact that you realize that Love know his stuff and he has a great writing style. He does cover the major system components with a great high level description, and more important, he gives a great analysis of issues, both design and some implementation. His overview of the CFS is the best of any I have seen. And this can be repeated most topics he covers in this book. The index is excellent. After reading this book I would love to go to a seminar given by Love. His presentation skills are probably better than his writing skills.

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詳解LinuxカーネルやLDDの邦訳が対象としているカーネルはLTSから外れてしまっていて、可能であればLTSをベースにしている解説書を読みたいな…となると、購入できるのはこの本だけになると思う(他にもあればゴメンなさい)。 実際、そのような動機でこの本を購入したのだけれど、LTSに関連したことは全然出てこないくらい概説のみ記載されている。洋書であるものの、本当に簡単な英語(カタカナで慣れ親しんだ単語)で書かれているので、読み進めることに支障はなかった。 残念な点は、Loveさんの得意なところと、不得意なところor説明しづらいところのコントラストが文面に現れていて、プロセスや割り込みのコンテキスト、スケジューリングなんかは本当に丁寧に解説されている。 反面、ディスクIOやファイルシステムはAPI(抽象化されたCインタフェース)を説明するに終わってしまっているので、IOまわりを知りたくなると別の本を探すことになると思う。

Wonderful starter for any one who wants to understand ground up what Linux is.. The author makes a very genuine attempt in making the reader understand the concepts. His remark of Linux being yet another 'huge software system' is an excellent introduction that gives confidence to the reader that a good part of complexity surrounding linux is the volume. The choice of words and the narration keeps it very engaging. The book doesn't help you get started on writing device drivers for ex - there are other books ( from O'Reilly that does a good job of that ) - this one is for a abstract and conceptual understanding which paves way for other detailed read-up. I started from her to Linux Device Drivers from O'Reilly and this book proved quite a good stepping stone.

Muy buen libro para empezar a aprender a entender el codigo fuente de el kernel de linux

Non è sistematico e per questo abbastanza sintetico. L'ordine degli argomenti acquista senso se si legge tutto d'un fiato anche se la lunghezza porta a stancarsi e abbandonare. Linguaggio scorrevole e ricco di idioms (forse l'aspetto migliore del libro). Io l'ho letto a periodi e ho fatto un pò fatica. Comunque una guida di riferimento che lascia spazio ai continui cambiamenti di struttura che spesso subisce questo sistema operativo (purtroppo).