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Design and implementation of the MTX operating system
Wang K., Springer International Publishing, New York, NY, 2015. 539 pp. Type: Book (978-3-319175-74-4)
Date Reviewed: Jul 27 2016

Design and implementation books for operating systems (OSs) can help one understand many details and subtleties. This book is no exception, but there are a couple of books that rival it [1,2]. The design and implementation of the FreeBSD operating system [1] is a classic that has been revised and goes into a practical FreeBSD system. Tanenbaum and Woodhull’s book [2] is equally a great book that uses MINIX to teach the fundamentals of the operating system. Even Linus credits it for the inspiration of Linux. These books have inspired countless computer scientists, engineers, and students. This book is another take on OS design, which is beautifully explained in stages. It is completely self-contained and is geared toward students for teaching and learning purposes. The initial chapters go into basics, and booting sequences and boot loaders are developed. Concepts such as process and threads are developed incrementally. Kernel is introduced in the initial chapters, and concepts such as interrupt handling, buffer management, and paging are sequentially developed. Many details on device drivers are provided in the book. These are very important in order to extend the OS; they are used for many peripherals. The author provides an ISO image to download from his site to install the kernel, allowing readers to go along with the system and learn on the fly.

The problems given in the book stand out and make the reader think outside of the box. Code fragments are sprinkled throughout the book, making learning a pleasurable experience. Source code is contained in the ISO file, and I highly encourage the reader to go through the source files and make modifications or improvements. Books such as these take a lot of time to write because the implementation and details should match; writing a complete operating system is no joke. The author has put together another book in this niche segment, and students will benefit from it greatly, whether it is used in an undergraduate or graduate class. In summary, there is a wealth of information in this nicely written book.

Reviewer:  Naga Narayanaswamy Review #: CR144635 (1610-0727)
1) Tanenbaum, A.; Woodhull, A. The design and implementation of the FreeBSD operating system (2nd ed.). Addison-Wesley Professional, New York, NY, 2014.
2) Tanenbaum, A.; Woodhull, A. Operating systems design and implementation (3rd ed.). Pearson, New York, NY, 2006.
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