PREFACE
The world has changed a great deal since the first edition of this book appeared in 1992. Computer networks
and distributed systems of all kinds have become very common. Small children now roam the Internet, where previously
only computer professionals went. As a consequence, this book has changed a great deal, too.
The most obvious change is that the first edition was about half on single-processor operating systems and half
on distributed systems. I chose that format in 1991 because few universities then had courses on distributed systems
and whatever students learned about distributed systems had to be put into the operating systems course, for which
this book was intended. Now most universities have a separate course on distributed systems, so it is not necessary
to try to combine the two subjects into one course and one book. This book is intended for a first course on operating
systems, and as such focuses mostly on traditional single-processor systems.
I have coauthored two other books on operating systems. This leads to two possible course sequences.
Practically-oriented sequence:
- Operating Systems Design and Implementation by Tanenbaum and Woodhull
- Distributed Systems by Tanenbaum and Van Steen
Traditional sequence:
- Modern Operating Systems by Tanenbaum
- Distributed Systems by Tanenbaum and Van Steen
The former sequence uses MINIX and the students are expected to experiment with MINIX in an accompanying laboratory
supplementing the first course. The latter sequence does not use MINIX. Instead, some small simulators are available
that can be used for student exercises during a first course using this book. These simulators can be found starting
on the author's Web page: www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/ by clicking on Software and supplementary material for my
books.
In addition to the major change of switching the emphasis to single-processor operating systems in this book,
other major changes include the addition of entire chapters on computer security, multimedia operating systems,
and Windows 2000, all important and timely topics. In addition, a new and unique chapter on operating system design
has been added.
Another new feature is that many chapters now have a section on research about the topic of the chapter. This
is intended to introduce the reader to modern work in processes, memory management, and so on. These sections have
numerous references to the current research literature for the interested reader. In addition, Chapter 13 has many
introductory and tutorial references.
Finally, numerous topics have been added to this book or heavily revised. These topics include: graphical user
interfaces, multiprocessor operating systems, power management for laptops, trusted systems, viruses, network terminals,
CDROM file systems, mutexes, RAID, soft timers, stable storage, fair-share scheduling, and new paging algorithms.
Many new problems have been added and old ones updated. The total number of problems now exceeds 450. A solutions
manual is available to professors using this book in a course. They can obtain a copy from their local Prentice
Hall representative. In addition, over 250 new references to the current literature have been added to bring the
book up to date.
Despite the removal of more than 400 pages of old material, the book has increased in size due to the large
amount of new material added. While the book is still suitable for a one-semester or two-quarter course, it is
probably too long for a one-quarter or one-trimester course at most universities. For this reason, the book has
been designed in a modular way. Any course on operating systems should cover chapters 1 through 6. This is basic
material that every student show know.
If additional time is available, additional chapters can be covered. Each of them assumes the reader has finished
chapters 1 through 6, but Chaps. 7 through 12 are each self contained, so any desired subset can be used and in
any order, depending on the interests of the instructor. In the author's opinion, Chaps. 7 through 12 are much
more interesting than the earlier ones. Instructors should tell their students that they have to eat their broccoli
before they can have the double chocolate fudge cake dessert.
I would like to thank the following people for their help in reviewing parts of the manuscript: Rida Bazzi,
Riccardo Bettati, Felipe Cabrera, Richard Chapman, John Connely, John Dickinson, John Elliott, Deborah Frincke,
Chandana Gamage, Robbert Geist, David Golds, Jim Griffioen, Gary Harkin, Frans Kaashoek, Mukkai Krishnamoorthy,
Monica Lam, Jussi Leiwo, Herb Mayer, Kirk McKusick, Evi Nemeth, Bill Potvin, Prasant Shenoy, Thomas Skinner, Xian-He
Sun, William Terry, Robbert Van Renesse, and Maarten van Steen. Jamie Hanrahan, Mark Russinovich, and Dave Solomon
were enormously knowledgeable about Windows 2000 and very helpful. Special thanks go to A1 Woodhull for valuable
reviews and thinking of many new end-of-chapter problems.
My students were also helpful with comments and feedback, especially Staas de Jong, Jan de Vos, Niels Drost,
David Fokkema, Auke Folkerts, Peter Groenewegen, Wilco Ibes, Stefan Jansen, Jeroen Ketema, Joeri Minder, Irwin
Oppenheim, Stef Post, Umar Rehman, Daniel Rijkhof, Maarten Sander, Maurits van der Schee, Rik van der Stoel, Mark
van Drill, Dennis van Veen, and Thomas Zeeman.
Barbara and Marvin are still wonderful, as usual, each in a unique way. Finally, last but not least, I would
like to thank Suzanne for her love and patience, not to mention all the druiven and kersen, which
have replaced the sinasappelsap in recent times.
Andrew S. Tanenbaum
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