<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Ugly, Ugly, Ugly...
Review: For some unknown reason, the publisher chose to set the table of contents, all the chapter headings, and all the section headings of this book in a cutesy cursive typeface -- in brown ink, no less. (If you squint, it looks a little like Tolkein's "elvish" writing.) This makes it very hard to find topics in the book. It even makes browsing the table of contents painful.TO THE PUBLISHER: This is a reference book. It is NOT a novel. It should have been designed to make it easy to find things by browsing. It seems to be another case of modern textbooks favoring style over substance. Shame on you. TO THE AUTHORS: Find another book designer for the next edition. As technical authors, your responsibility to your readers is to communicate information -- NOT to impress people with how cute your book looks.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy read
Review: Great book ! This book will take you through all the important concepts of the operating systems. It's easy to read, and one reading pass should be enough. Examples are clear and well explained. It's also great as a reference if you are working on/with operating system. The book is appropriate for begginers (knowledge in basic computer science is required), but advanced topics and profound details could be interesting also to an advanced reader. The names of the chapters are well chosen, and the overall book partitioning and information order is excellent. At the end different case studies are given, so you can understand the concepts you've learned in practise. Case studies include System V Unix, DOS, MVS, Virtual machine, Apple Machintosh, OS/2 - should satisfy all interests. Although I've read 1990. Second edition, all important topics are up to date - students still learn about deadlocks, scheduling, monitors....
Rating:
Summary: Classic concepts
Review: I'm a student and currently studying Concurrent Systems (in an IT Degree at Charles Sturt University in Australia) and have been reading Jean Bacon's 1998 text "Concurrent Systems". I discovered an "old" book at work called "An Introduction to Operating Systems" by Harvey M. Deitel, revised First Edition 1984. Much of the information on processes, asynchronous concurrent processes, monitors, semaphores & deadlock were all still current and I found some of the text easier to absorb. Obviously the case studies where out of date, but the concepts remian solid. In a field that changes so rapidly and texts date, this has remained useful.
Rating:
Summary: Classic concepts
Review: I'm a student and currently studying Concurrent Systems (in an IT Degree at Charles Sturt University in Australia) and have been reading Jean Bacon's 1998 text "Concurrent Systems". I discovered an "old" book at work called "An Introduction to Operating Systems" by Harvey M. Deitel, revised First Edition 1984. Much of the information on processes, asynchronous concurrent processes, monitors, semaphores & deadlock were all still current and I found some of the text easier to absorb. Obviously the case studies where out of date, but the concepts remian solid. In a field that changes so rapidly and texts date, this has remained useful.
Rating:
Summary: The best of learning operating systems theory
Review: If your not an expert in computer science, or even if you are just a beginner, you'll find this book quite useful no matter the operating system you work with. This is also an entertaining book, since it can be read from the beginning to the end the same way you could do it with an exciting novel.
Concepts are explained very clearly and, if you'd like to go deeper in any topic, there's an extensive bibliography for every chapter. The document's structure is the same along the book, beginning with introductory text, an ending with a summary of concepts.
Don't be afraid if you're not a brilliant hacker. This book explains everything in such a friendly way, that it makes operating systems theory appear easier than other operating systems books do. Everybody can learn from it!
Rating:
Summary: Too theoretical. Doesn't try to map theory to practice.
Review: Not bad but tends to be a little too theoretical. I prefer books which illustrate a concept with examples from real life. Would prefer Tanenbaum.
Rating:
Summary: ok book
Review: The book is not bad for getting ideas, but it does not help much in converting the ideas to code. You don't learn all that much for $60
Rating:
Summary: who designed this book?!
Review: The content of this text is decent. However, the organization and display of the content is horrendous. Maybe the final editor of this book was blind and was going through a braille copy, I'm not sure. The typeface used for the headings and topics in this book are so awful they are literally distracting. There are headings in an "olde script" font face followed by subheadings in a modern cursive font face. Everything about it is over the top and tacky.
Rating: 
Summary: Read this before going into distributed computing.
Review: This book covers the subject of OS in a very clear and concise manner. A must read for all CS majors or anybody wanting to know more about systems software.
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. TERRIBLE!
Review: This is simply an awful book. The content is terrible and the design is worse. There are much better books available in this market with clear explanation, appropriate selection of topics, and from authors that actually work with OSs (the real author on this, Choffnes, doesn't semm to have any experience with OSs - research, practical or otherwise). This is not the way to learn this important topic. You would be much better off with the Silberschatz book, which I learned from and have taught from. Even Tannenbaum is a much better choice. Stay clear.
<< 1 >>
| 
