Modern Operating Systems

The widely anticipated revision of this worldwide best-seller incorporates the latest developments in operating systems technologies. The Third Edition includes up-to-date materials on relevant operating systems such as Linux, Windows, and embedded real-time and multimedia systems. Includes new and updated coverage of multimedia operating systems, multiprocessors, virtual machines, and antivirus software. Covers internal workings of Windows Vista (Ch. 11); unique even for current publications. Provides information on current research based Tanenbaum’s experiences as an operating systems researcher. A useful reference for programmers.

An up-to-date overview of operating systems presented by world-renowned computer scientist and author, Andrew Tanenbaum. This is the first guide to provide balanced coverage between centralized and distributed operating systems. Part I covers processes, memory management, file systems, I/O systems, and deadlocks in single operating system environments. Part II covers communication, synchronization process execution, and file systems in a distributed operating system environment. Includes case studies on UNIX, MACH, AMOEBA, and DOS operating systems.

Discusses the key principles of both kinds of systems — including MS-DOS, UNIX, Amoeba, and Mach.

Covers all the traditional topics, including interprocess, communication, semaphores, monitors, scheduling algorithms, deadlocks, virtual memory, and file system design.

Explores all key issues in distributed systems — including the client-server model, remote procedure call, distributed synchronization, transactions, threads, distributed shared memory, and file servers.

Reflects real-world experience that provides practical, hands-on information in constructing and understanding modern operating systems.

Andrew S. Tanenbaum has an S.B. degree from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he is head of the Computer Systems Department. He is also the Dean of the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging, an interuniversity graduate school doing research on advanced parallel, distributed, and imaging systems. Nevertheless, he is trying very hard to avoid turning into a bureaucrat.

In the past, he has done research on compilers, operating systems, networking, and local-area distributed systems. His current research focuses primarily on the design of wide-area distributed systems that scale to a billion users. This research is being done together with Dr. Maarten van Steen. Together, all his research projects have led to over 90 refereed papers in journals and conference proceedings and five books.

Prof. Tanenbaum has also produced a considerable volume of software. He was the principal architect of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, a widely-used toolkit for writing portable compilers, as well as of MINIX, a small UNIX clone intended for use in student programming labs. Together with his Ph.D. students and programmers, he helped design the Amoeba distributed operating system, a high-performance microkernel-based distributed operating system. The MINIX and Amoeba systems are now available for free via the Internet.

His Ph.D. students have gone on to greater glory after getting their degrees. He is very proud of them. In this respect he resembles a mother hen.

Prof. Tanenbaum is a Fellow of the ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, winner of the 1994 ACM Karl V Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award, and winner of the 1997 ACM/SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education. He is also listed in Who's Who in the World. His home page on the World Wide Web can be found at URL http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/.