Product Description

Mac OS X was released in March 2001, but many components, such as Mach and BSD, are considerably older. Understanding the design, implementation, and workings of Mac OS X requires examination of several technologies that differ in their age, origins, philosophies, and roles.

Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach is the first book that dissects the internals of the system, presenting a detailed picture that grows incrementally as you read. For example, you will learn the roles of the firmware, the bootloader, the Mach and BSD kernel components (including the process, virtual memory, IPC, and file system layers), the object-oriented I/O Kit driver framework, user libraries, and other core pieces of software. You will learn how these pieces connect and work internally, where they originated, and how they evolved. The book also covers several key areas of the Intel-based Macintosh computers.

A solid understanding of system internals is immensely useful in design, development, and debugging for programmers of various skill levels. System programmers can use the book as a reference and to construct a better picture of how the core system works. Application programmers can gain a deeper understanding of how their applications interact with the system. System administrators and power users can use the book to harness the power of the rich environment offered by Mac OS X. Finally, members of the Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unix communities will find the book valuable in comparing and contrasting Mac OS X with their respective systems.

Mac OS X Internals focuses on the technical aspects of OS X and is so full of extremely useful information and programming examples that it will definitely become a mandatory tool for every Mac OS X programmer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #159737 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1680 pages

Review

 "Overall, I recommend this book to anyone that wants a deeper understanding of the internals of the Macintosh. If you are a developer, this is a must-have book."--Justin Williams, Founder, Maczealots.com

"It's a book that every administrator and developer of almost any kind of hardware and software would want to own. It explains the how as opposed to the what of OS X more clearly, thoroughly and intelligently than any other book on the market."--Mark Sealey, Contributing Editor, ThinkSecret.com

From the Back Cover

Mac OS X was released in March 2001, but many components, such as Mach and BSD, are considerably older. Understanding the design, implementation, and workings of Mac OS X requires examination of several technologies that differ in their age, origins, philosophies, and roles.

Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach is the first book that dissects the internals of the system, presenting a detailed picture that grows incrementally as you read. For example, you will learn the roles of the firmware, the bootloader, the Mach and BSD kernel components (including the process, virtual memory, IPC, and file system layers), the object-oriented I/O Kit driver framework, user libraries, and other core pieces of software. You will learn how these pieces connect and work internally, where they originated, and how they evolved. The book also covers several key areas of the Intel-based Macintosh computers.

A solid understanding of system internals is immensely useful in design, development, and debugging for programmers of various skill levels. System programmers can use the book as a reference and to construct a better picture of how the core system works. Application programmers can gain a deeper understanding of how their applications interact with the system. System administrators and power users can use the book to harness the power of the rich environment offered by Mac OS X. Finally, members of the Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unix communities will find the book valuable in comparing and contrasting Mac OS X with their respective systems.

Mac OS X Internals focuses on the technical aspects of OS X and is so full of extremely useful information and programming examples that it will definitely become a mandatory tool for every Mac OS X programmer.

About the Author
Amit Singh is an operating systems researcher, programmer, and author. He manages the Macintosh engineering team at Google. Previously, Amit has worked on operating systems at IBM Research, Bell Laboratories, and a Silicon Valley startup doing cutting-edge work in the area of virtualization. He also created and maintains osxbook.com and kernelthread.com. Amit often writes and releases open source software, such as MacFUSE, a Mac OS X implementation of the FUSE (File System in USEr Space) mechanism.

Customer Reviews

Very very detailed ....
Every single aspect of Mac hardware and a large extent system software is covered in depth - this really is a book for die-hard mac developers. It's truly not a book for a novice or even intermediate level user.

IMHO you really do need a firm understanding of hardware architecture to get the most from this book.

In places this book reads like an academic course book, and can be too 'dry'.

Intel is covered, but not in great depth. The focus is really on G4 and G5 class.

I'm left wondering who the intended audience really is for this book.

So, it gets 5 stars for being the definitive Mac hardware reference, and 3 stars for being far too 'academic' in tone.

Enormous book!
This is the biggest book I've ever read. Perhaps half a dozen others have topped 1K pages. But at 1600 pages, this is the biggest. The sheer weight of it makes it uncomfortable to hold for any length of time, so best read it at a table.

The author works for IBM, and there is a lot (in fact, I'd say excessive) of coverage of the IBM PowerPC 970 chip. There is some Intel CPU coverage, but it doesn't permeate the book as the 970 does.

I enjoyed the intro to Mac history - I don't have a strong Mac background.

The main reason that I don't rate this book highly is that it dwells too much on the lowest level. There is a great deal of coverage of the boot process. Code is analysed step by step. I'd have like to have seen more abstraction and description of the higher level architecture.