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It's the best I've ever read (toghether with "Embedded Linux Primer").The author not only knows what he says (and writes.)., but he understands it deeply and he is able to explain it to you in an easy way, with fun.You don't need to be a linux kernel developer to find this book useful: you can find it very interesting to read how skilled, clever and expert developers solved difficult problems (often in a surprisingly easy way.). Pure fun. This is a great book. at kernel level, and you can use this knowledge in your own user-level world (or in the embedded world, like I do).The only part I've found a little bit boring is the Virtual Filesystem chapter. My fault, anyway.
I bought this book three years back and still reading it.Three years back, I was an application programmer (and even today I am :-) ) but had interested in learning operating systems. Went to look bookstore and bought the book. I was working for a security product that was implemented in hardened Linux. During discussion with my friend, we have to discuss about system call intercept and we wanted to write a system call and intercept one just for fun.Linux was my default destination because of open source in nature with source code readily available.We quickly checked out and found this book online. Read through system call chapter and within 3 hours, we implemented one new system call.This book is simple, yet effective and conveys what a newbie Linux Kernel developer needs to know.This book also helped to refine my understanding on system programming. Being an application programmer, it was very helpful for me to understand system and made me better application programmer.
This book is very easy to read, this is simply because Robert presented the material in such a way and it should not be taken for granted.
Another good thing is that the text is not a regurgitation of other reference material or filled with useless code print-outs.It is generally concise and to-the-point and doesn't insult your intelligence (maybe because the author is a "real" developer). If you're going to work on or within Linux, you'll have to start reading the code sooner or later. But this book can point the way and shine some light on your first few steps, and I do recommend it. One notable exception is that it actually tries to teach basic concepts such as context switching, locking, and synchronization, etc. If you don't have the proper technical background, not only you don't learn it from this half-baked description, but you also have no business messing in the kernel anyway.
The book is a real easy read, Robert Love makes it really easy to understand what hes talking about.The book does lack lots of extra information for the more in-depth inner workings of the kernel, however I find this book easier to read.I read it before reading Understanding the Linux Kernel, which has much more in-depth information
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