From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jan 27 7:51:51 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from flood.ping.uio.no (flood.ping.uio.no [129.240.78.31]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 77C4837B400 for ; Sat, 27 Jan 2001 07:51:33 -0800 (PST) Received: (from des@localhost) by flood.ping.uio.no (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA01542; Sat, 27 Jan 2001 16:51:28 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from des@ofug.org) X-URL: http://www.ofug.org/~des/ X-Disclaimer: The views expressed in this message do not necessarily coincide with those of any organisation or company with which I am or have been affiliated. To: Alfred Perlstein Cc: GLOBALLINK2001@aol.com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Kernel Hacking (i tried not to make it lame) References: <8c.189517c.27a24307@aol.com> <20010126011053.C26076@fw.wintelcom.net> From: Dag-Erling Smorgrav Date: 27 Jan 2001 16:51:28 +0100 In-Reply-To: Alfred Perlstein's message of "Fri, 26 Jan 2001 01:10:53 -0800" Message-ID: Lines: 31 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) Emacs/20.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Alfred Perlstein writes: > * GLOBALLINK2001@aol.com [010125 19:04] wrote: > > 2.) you should know some basic stuff about FreeBSD internels (i am planning > > on getting The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System > > Well more than 'basic' hopefully. :) > > Good choice on a book, others to look at are: > "UNIX Internals 'the new frontiers'" Vahalia > "The Basic Kernel Source Secrets" Jolitz I haven't read Vahalia, so I can't comment on that one, but both McKusick et al. and Jolitz are seriously outdated - you can basically forget anything they tell you about memory management (particularly virtual memory), interrupt handling, spls, and probably scheduling as well; and none of them tell you much about writing device drivers (which is what kernel newbies most often want to do). On the other hand, the Daemon book (McKusick et al.) still has some fairly relevant sections (some of part 2, about half of part 3 and most of part 4), and does a good job of demystifying the kernel on a psychological level, i.e. teaching you that most of it really isn't deep voodoo and you can understand it if you try. In my experience, this psychological block is a much bigger obstacle to overcome than actual technical complexity. (hmm, I must remember to drop by Mustang Jack next time I'm in NYC) DES -- Dag-Erling Smorgrav - des@ofug.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message