Linux Kernel Development (2nd Edition) (Novell Press) | Robert Love

Linux Kernel Development (2nd Edition) (Novell Press) | Robert Love | clear and careful explanations from an expert

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Linux Kernel Devel...

	Linux Kernel Development (2nd Edition) (Novell Press) Robert Love Novell Press, 2005 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent Linux kernel development book for newbie and prof.

I have been doing Linux kernel/system level development on and off since 1999. This is the book that I think should be owned by any Linux newbie who wants starting their kernel hacking. Even if people do not directly do Linux kernel development, it is a good book complementary to any serious operating systems course in college - it helps gain a better idea of how and why.

The book is quite easy to follow and read and does not try to overwhelm readers with tons of information (consequently it does not address many details in Linux kernel). I consider this is a major strength of the book which parts away from other books (comparing to "Understanding the Linux Kernel", which has quite some details on each subsystem, but if you take the book as your guide to kernel programming, you feel you are overwhelmed by the information and often clueless on where to start to write some simple stuffs. This does not mean I think the latter is a bad one - it is a very good one indeed). Considering the fact that Linux kernel evolves so fast, it may make sense to focus on the core parts and once you understand them, it may become easy for you to track and understand changes later. Even as a professional programmer doing kernel development, occasionally referencing a well-written book like this is very helpful.

I am a bit reluctant to rate it 5 stars though due to many typos observed, which I guess is the result of rush to publishing (and the poor job of proofreading). Fortuanately, most can be understood by reading the contexts around them. But a few are really misleading or totally wrong. For example, on page 169, there is a sample code to show how page allocation/free is done in kernel. It uses __get_free_pages() to allocate pages, but uses free_pages() to free these pages. As the author has just said a page ago, __free_pages() should be used to free (struct page*) pages, otherwise corruption will ensure (free_pages is used to free pages with logic address as parameter).

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clear and careful explanations from an expert

I was a Linux kernel newbie writing a device driver and started reading "Linux Device Drivers" by Rubini. On hindsight, this was a bad idea. Rubini's book goes deep into driver code quickly with good details but it only sparingly touches the higher level kernel overview or essential concepts. These missing pieces are covered very well in Love's book and I should have understood them before reading Rubini's book; important basic concepts covered in good detail include:

- user thread vs kernel thread.
- kernel-space process context vs kernel-space interrupt context.
- tasklet as a non-concurrent form of softirq and is not related in any way to tasks.
- bottom-half methods comprising softirq, tasklet and work queue; and that BH and task queue are obsolete and deprecated.
- semaphore sleeping vs spinlock spinning (busy-wait).
- spinlock adversely affecting scheduling latency while semaphore does not.

Love's book shows ambly that he is an expert in Linux kernel matters and speaks with authority. At the same time he has the ability of a good teacher to explain obscure and critical kernel concepts clearly. I heartily recommend this as the first book one should read about the Linux kernel, well before books such as Bovet's "Understanding the Linux Kernel" or Rubini's device driver book.

This 2nd edition introduces more materials and explanation to cover the updated 2.6 kernel. As far as I can see, it is a worthy new edition to own.

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One of the very best technical books I own

I buy a lot of technical books - more than I could possibly ever read. This title is, for me, very readable. The Author presents information the way I want to see it. I really like the historical background information on Linux and comparisons to Unix. If you are looking for one single reference on Linux programming, I recommend this title. Not just for kernel hacking.

A must read book for kernel developpers

The author is really a good teacher. He gradually takes the reader into the dark woods of kernel and still assures the ease of understanding the programming concepts well.You really feel the joy of evolving into a professional as you read this book.Kudos.
I own it.

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Excellent Read

There is only 1 reason that I didn't give this book a 5 star rating. I found the memory management a bit below par. But that's probably because the initial chapters up the bar so high that the last few fail to live up to those high standards.

The chapter on Scheduling is phenomenal - easily the best! Maybe even that is an understatement. An added "advantage" is that this book is on kernel 2.6.

If you're entering the realm of kernel hacking, my recommendation is, read this first, Linux device Drivers by Rubini next, and then Understanding the Linux Kernel by Bovet and Cesati.

What next? The source - that's where you'll get all the answers. :)

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8

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