Daniel Carrera wrote:
> I can get the second edition for 18 EUR and the first edition for 6
> EUR. But I know that they don't cover Minix 3 and that Minix changed a
> lot in version 3. What do you think? If I got one of the older
> editions would it still help me understand Minix 3? Or are they
> hopelessly outdated? The first edition is 21 years old...

I own the second edition, because I needed it for a course when the third
edition wasn't out yet. It explains most of the concepts and challenges in
an OS-independent manner (it extensively covers VM and paging and the lot
even though MINIX doesn't have it), but the code examples are of course
MINIX 2, not 3. I think it's still a great book on operating systems, but
it won't do as a reference. So, if you want the theory, the second book
should do. If you want it to help you work on MINIX 3, you wight want to
get a (second-hand) copy of the third edition.

Regards,

Jens

--
Jens de Smit
Student Computer Science | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
jfdsmit@few.vu.nl | http://www.few.vu.nl/~jfdsmit
"[In the end, people] get furious at IT that the goddamn magic isn't working"
-- Stewart Dean

On Aug 27, 1:40*pm, "J.F. de Smit" wrote:
> I own the second edition, because I needed it for a course when the third
> edition wasn't out yet. It explains most of the concepts and challenges in
> an OS-independent manner (it extensively covers VM and paging and the lot
> even though MINIX doesn't have it), but the code examples are of course
> MINIX 2, not 3. I think it's still a great book on operating systems, but
> it won't do as a reference. So, if you want the theory, the second book
> should do. If you want it to help you work on MINIX 3, you wight want to
> get a (second-hand) copy of the third edition.

Thanks. I'll have to think about it, but now I have a good idea what
the difference is. I'm leaning toward the second edition.

How much experience do I need before I can read this book? I am not a
CS graduate, my degree is in math and physics. I know C from a couple
of programming courses ("programming for scientists" and "unix
programming") but I'm very out of practice. If the book is at the
first or second year university level I should be fine, but if it is
at the masters level, it might be too much for me.

Daniel.

Daniel Carrera wrote:
> How much experience do I need before I can read this book? I am not a
> CS graduate, my degree is in math and physics. I know C from a couple
> of programming courses ("programming for scientists" and "unix
> programming") but I'm very out of practice. If the book is at the
> first or second year university level I should be fine, but if it is
> at the masters level, it might be too much for me.

It's at third year level actually At least, it is taught in the third
year here at the VU. As I said, the book deals largely in concepts, not in
code. My C knowledge was very limited when I did the course, but I passed
it quite easily. You might want to re-read a primer on C before tackling
the code examples, but you'll get through the book fine without being a
kernel hacker.

Regards,

Jens


--
Jens de Smit
Student Computer Science | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
jfdsmit@few.vu.nl | http://www.few.vu.nl/~jfdsmit
"[In the end, people] get furious at IT that the goddamn magic isn't working"
-- Stewart Dean

On Aug 27, 2:45*pm, "J.F. de Smit" wrote:
> It's at third year level actually At least, it is taught in the third
> year here at the VU. As I said, the book deals largely in concepts, not in
> code. My C knowledge was very limited when I did the course, but I passed
> it quite easily. You might want to re-read a primer on C before tackling
> the code examples, but you'll get through the book fine without being a
> kernel hacker.

Excellent. Thanks.

Daniel.