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Re: netbsd : internals : bach book : good to start-off?



> From bounces-netbsd-users-owner-mayuresh=sdf.org%NetBSD.org@localhost Mon Apr 22 04:55:39 2019
> From: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
> To: Mayuresh Kathe <mayuresh%sdf.org@localhost>
> cc: netbsd-users%netbsd.org@localhost
> Subject: Re: netbsd : internals : bach book : good to start-off?
>
>     Date:        Mon, 22 Apr 2019 04:34:44 GMT
>     From:        Mayuresh Kathe <mayuresh%sdf.org@localhost>
>     Message-ID:  <201904220434.x3M4YicI026507%sdf.org@localhost>
>
>   | just nitpicking, isn't bach's book reasonable enough for unix internals? :)
>
> You think there is just one "unix" to have internals?   Or that they are
> all really similar, or something?
>
> As I recall (it has been a long time since I looked, but I think I
> have a copy of that one, or some edition of it anyway somewhere) Bach's
> book mostly describes System V.
>
> Even in the early 90's (in the vintage of McKusick's 4.3BSD book)
> System V and BSD had diverged quite a lot internally.
>
> In the decades since, even moreso.   There is (that I know of anyway)
> no book that will come really close to describing NetBSD internals,
> with all the bus_map and mem management (incl UVM), and locking, and ...
> that are more or less unique to NetBSD - and yet are all fundamental
> to a true understanding of the internals.
>
> Even McKusick's FreeBSD book (as similar aas FreeBSD is to NetBSD in
> some ways) will contain much that is not relevant to NetBSD (including
> soft mounts, and all related to that) and be lacking much, but it
> is going to be much closer to NetBSD and so get you further than Bach's
> book would.
>
> But if all you want is a guide to how some arbitrary unix system might
> be implemented, or if you really want to know SysV internals, then yes,
> that one should be just fine.
>
> kre
>
> ps: if you're really looking for a user or programmer's guide, then you
> want something quite different.
>
>

i am not looking for a user or programmer's guide.
i have no knowledge of any operating system internals, leave alone unix.
so, since bach's book is so light (in terms of page count) and affordable
i thought it would be a good starting-off point into operating system
internals.
i know and fully acknowledge that i will have to work hard to understand
netbsd internals, and the currently, the only way to do so is by reading
the source, over and over again till i get comfortable with it.


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