Using this textbook right now for my grad-level OS class (I'm a student). Definitely one of the most readable textbooks I've ever used -- the authors actually try to impart some personality into the writing. I'm not 100% sold on how they divide the book into 3 parts -- virtualization, concurrency, persistence -- since not everything in an OS fits precisely into one section (e.g., multi-core scheduling is in virtualization but could also fall under concurency). Still, for the price (free/$10 enhanced PDF/$22 softcover) I'd heartily recommend this book to anyone, and I hope it quickly becomes the standard OS book.
I love this book so much. It is a treasure. You can tell from the text the Remzi and Andrea are natural educators, and their sense of humor makes you want to read more.
Years ago when I used this book, I was blown away by the clarity and concision of their explanations for non-trivial technical content. In particular, their treatment of scheduling stuck out to me. To my knowledge, no other OS textbook explains scheduling in such an intuitive way -- the typical treatment is more like "meh, here's the zoo of scheduling algorithms". In this book, they start with a long list of workload assumptions, and discuss the optimal scheduling policies under these assumptions. As they relax assumptions, the optimal scheduling policy changes.
Also, OSTEP seems to be in a better position to solicit feedback from readers / professors using the book than other operating systems textbooks. Remzi was quite prompt and appreciative when I sent some suggestions.
I’ve been studying Real-time operating systems (RTOS) and it’s fascinating. While they’re incredibly basic, they offer a stepping stone into larger more complex systems with file system, multi core, etc. RTOSes emphasize on “real-time” or predictability while general operating systems, they focus on throughput.
I recommend looking at FreeRTOS source code or building one from scratch.
I took the class this textbook is used for a couple of years ago at UW. Andrea was a fantastic teacher and it was the easiest presentation of the material I'd ever found! Seriously, read this textbook. It's full of wit and information.
This is a really really good book on Operating Systems. Before this I had read (http://codex.cs.yale.edu/avi/os-book/OS9/slide-dir/index.htm...), which is itself a really good book, but this one seemed more funnier and less dry, and I think reading two OS books gives you a little different perspective from each.
What, a college textbook that doesn't require the purchase of a new edition every year, or local insert that isn't part of the public text, or online homework code? Yeah, right.
I took Remzi's (one of the authors) advanced os course when I was in Wisc as a graduate student 8 years ago. I would say it's the best course I've ever had.
I've used it for my university course regarding OS. But after the theorical approach I've found incredibly useful to work directly with the OS-level code (JOS OS, pretty fun), if someone is interested: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2012/
Yeah, exokernels tend to do VM management in a more split way than you might see in other OSs that might be obfuscating the underlying concepts. I'd take a look at how xv6 does it, as that's about as simple as it gets.
Hands down one of the best textbooks on a CS topic that I have read. It was actually FUN to read. If your trying to get started in OS fundamentals and such this is a great book to start with.
I bought and read the hardcover (0.91) and it was great, but the new version has enough new stuff i wont feel bad buying another softcover copy, while happily supporting the authors.
One of the best CS textbooks I've ever read. I recently reached out to my OS prof because I couldn't remember the title. Funny to see it posted on HN a couple days later.
