Modern Operating Systems

What Hacker News says

1. atribecalledqstMay 2026
   I've cracked into quite a few programming books over the years and it's pretty crazy how much of an advantage it's given me. I'm a lowly systems engineer, not even a real programmer, but I definitely understand networking better than the majority of programmers at my company because I read Stevens' TCP/IP Illustrated 10 years back. (and I read the OLD version from the 90s that was already dated when I read it!) And then I read UNIX Network Programming to help understand all the different sockets APIs and that's paid dividends too, because I get our network programming code better than most of my coworkers too.

   Then there was that one time I was self-studying computer architecture (Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective) and was able to turn what I learned around and hack our binary code at a customer site because I wasn't in an environment where I could compile our code... and then years later, when I wanted to analyze the ROM of a 90s electronic device with a much simpler instruction set than x86, I wasn't afraid to crack open the thing in Ghidra

   Let's see, what else have I read that's paid dividends over the years:

   - Modern Operating Systems (Tannenbaum)

   - Learning Python (Lutz)

   - JavaScript - The Definitive Guide (Flanagan)

   - Programming PHP (Tatroe)

   - Learning Web Design (Robbins)

   - Algorithms (Sedgewick)

   - A book I read whose name escapes me now, about technologies like RS-282/RS-484 and serial communications in general

   - (I could probably put down Cuckoo's Egg too as an "inspiration" for me ultimately getting interested in computers and networking, and I bet that's not too uncommon a story)

   It's probably a sign of my age (mid 30s for reference), but when I'm curious about something and want to learn it really deeply - I look for a good book on the topic. (although I'm willing to admit that maybe this process hinders me in some ways, because it means I sometimes spend more time studying than I actually do working with a thing - I have spent a LOT more time reading about circuits than building them - but I like studying so I'm happy either way)

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2. andrehackerSep 2025
   That is an excellent recommendation. For Operating Systems anything Andy Tanenbaum did is world class.

   This made me look up what he has been up to, there is a 2023 edition of "Modern Operating Systems" which covers cloud virtualization and Android along with everything that came before, hm, tempting.

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3. linguaeJun 2024
   Some good resources to start with:

   - OSDev.org (https://wiki.osdev.org/Expanded_Main_Page) is a great starting point for writing an operating system

   - Three Easy Pieces (https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/) is a wonderful free online textbook that teaches the concepts of operating systems.

   - Modern Operating Systems, 5th Edition by Andrew Tanenbaum (of MINIX fame) and Herbert Bos (https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/modern-opera...) is the latest edition of a solid graduate-level textbook on operating system concepts.

   It may also be beneficial studying the source code of existing operating systems. I recommend starting with smaller, simpler systems, such as MINIX and xv6 (https://github.com/mit-pdos/xv6-public), before moving on to larger, more complex systems such as the Linux kernel (https://kernel.org/) and its userland (e.g., GNU utilities, systemd, etc.).

   Another cool thing is to study the designs of non-Unix operating systems, such as the classic Mac OS, VMS, IBM OS/400, Plan 9 (yes, this is "more Unix than Unix" in many ways, but it's quite a departure from Unix) and its successor Inferno, and Symbolics Genera. Bonus points for reading academic papers on OS concepts such as exokernels.

   Good luck! It's a long but very interesting journey!

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4. sandreasJun 2024
   Maybe you'd find

     Modern Operating Systems by Tanenbaum 
   

   interesting. It's not about Software Engineering in general, but will bring you many insights how everything works together and not necessarily is a book where you need to practise things a lot.
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5. supriyo-biswasJun 2024
   Although this is a thread about Tanenbaum, personally I feel that Data Communications and Networking by Forouzan helps explain things in a better way and goes into the details of each network layer.

   Modern Operating Systems is great though, and when I was in college I've recommended it to peers whose feedback was along the same lines.

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6. rramadassJun 2024
   > running a distributed operating system where processes could be be freely migrated between my phone, desktop, laptop and NAS without too much of a hitch.

   This was what i always wanted ever since i read Tanenbaum's "Modern Operating Systems" and in particular his "Amoeba distributed OS" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoeba_(operating_system) Also see Plan 9/Inferno from Bell Labs. But instead what we got (due to industry shenanigans) is this garbage/duct-tape of distribution gone crazy in the "Cloud".

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