Operating System Concepts by Abraham Silberschatz

I like reading this book. The authors did a pretty decent job taking a hard subject and writing about in a way I could understand, and organizing the sections in a way that builds your knowledge. My professor gave us a number of hard programming assignments in C that followed the book as well and reinforced that knowledge. So if you use this book within the right system, it can be very good. I don’t think it would be easy for a beginner to just read however. You really need to dive into some of the things that you read about and get your hands dirty to gain the full value from this book. My graduate class was able to cover 6 chapters completely plus a spattering from a few other chapters in one semester. It was a very worthwhile class.

Loving this book. Had to purchase for my Operating Systems Theory class. When I saw that the regular edition cost over 100 bucks I was ready to grit my teeth and just buy it. Then I heard about the Indian edition which was insanely cheaper so I bought it without a second thought. Shipping was fast and the book is high quality. Some people complain the pages are too thin and you can’t concentrate because the text bleeds through; while the paper is thinner, I am not distracted by the very light bleed that comes through. Maybe if you hold a single page up to the light and try to read them you’ll get distracted…

As for content, this book is great. After finishing a particularly long chapter, I found myself continuing to read simply because I was feeling more curious about what the author would talk about next.

This edition is great!

Great introduction to anyone interested in the topic. It explain all the basics (and even more advanced concepts) in a very intuitive manner. A must for any computer science students or enthusiasts.

This IS NOT ISBN: 9781118063330 it is ISBN: 9788126554270. Although it is the Ninth Edition, the chapters are not the same as 9781118063330. It looks like all the subject matter is the same, so I am going to give it a good rating as far as a book, BUT if you are taking a college class on Operating Systems, and the Professor is going by Chapter, you are going to be completely lost when you start trying to figure out what chapter matches what the instructor is talking about. I think the chapters have different information in them, it is not just that the chapters are mismatched.

I bought the book and am going to keep it because it is a great book BUT, I had to also rent the correct one for the US which is 9781118063330 because I was very confused about what a test or quiz was going to be on, when they said it was Chapters 1 – 4.

This book is very bias toward Linux with the occasional reference to Windows. I would say some of the material is just wrong – perhaps they do this to make it easier to understand. For example, they talk about OS security models and talk about “layers” – however while they are technically layers the industry calls them rings (look up ring -1). In Chapter 2 – they mention a lot of system calls – many of them are just wrong. For example – 2.4.1 – there is no end system call (they might have meant exit). 2.4.2 – they mention a “delete” system call; there is no delete system call but there is a remove or unlink system calls (at least in Linux). Again reading through Chapter 2 they are obviously very bias towards Linux…which there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with that but the material they put together can actually be dangerous because to a new person who didn’t know anything about system calls (or a professor teaching out of this book) may make people believe there are system calls that don’t exist or terms that aren’t used. Maybe they were just using it as an example – but personally if I were to write a book I would use terms, concepts, and system calls that were actually used such that if someone wanted to find more information they could google them.

I gave it 3 stars because I think it’s a great starting point – just needs to be reviewed a little bit. This book has a lot of great information and I think it does a pretty good job explaining things so it’s great for someone who may not understand how an OS works.

Also as an aside note – I was disappointed when the index entry for “page address extension (PAE) has 396 – but that points to a blank page….

Me parece uno de los mejores libros para explicar los conceptos de los sistemas operativos, pero su precio me parece elevado.