Product Description

For a one-semester undergraduate course in operating systems for computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering majors.

Winner of the 2009 Textbook Excellence Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)!

Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles is a comprehensive and unified introduction to operating systems. By using several innovative tools, Stallings makes it possible to understand critical core concepts that can be fundamentally challenging. The new edition includes the implementation of web based animations to aid visual learners. At key points in the book, students are directed to view an animation and then are provided with assignments to alter the animation input and analyze the results.

The concepts are then enhanced and supported by end-of-chapter case studies of UNIX, Linux and Windows Vista. These provide students with a solid understanding of the key mechanisms of modern operating systems and the types of design tradeoffs and decisions involved in OS design. Because they are embedded into the text as end of chapter material, students are able to apply them right at the point of discussion. This approach is equally useful as a basic reference and as an up-to-date survey of the state of the art.

William Stallings has prepared a robust suite of student and instructor resources, including a rich set of Animations to illustrate key functions and algorithms in OS design.  (Icons are placed at relevant points in the text to indicate that an animation is available.) Access them via the Prentice Hall page www.prenhall.com/stallings  or directly at the author's website http://www.williamstallings.com/OS/OS6e.html under the link "Useful Websites."  Visit Stalllings Computer Science Student Resource page at http://williamstallings.com/StudentSupport.html.

Key downloadable instructor resources including access codes to GOAL (www.prenhall.com/goal), as well as student access to GOAL are available by clicking on the Resources tab above. 

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #109713 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 840 pages

About the Author

    William Stallings has made a unique contribution to understanding the broad sweep of technical developments in computer networking and computer architecture. He has authored 17 titles, and counting revised editions, a total of 41 books on various aspects of these subjects. In over 20 years in the field, he has been a technical contributor, technical manager, and an executive with several high-technology firms. Currently he is an independent consultant whose clients have included computer and networking manufacturers and customers, software development firms, and leading-edge government research institutions.

         He has seven times received the award for the best Computer Science textbook of the year from the Text and Academic Authors Association.

         Bill has designed and implemented both TCP/IP-based and OSI-based protocol suites on a variety of computers and operating systems, ranging from microcomputers to mainframes. As a consultant, he has advised government agencies, computer and software vendors, and major users on the design, selection, and use of networking software and products.

         As evidence of his commitment to providing a broad range of support to students, Bill created and maintains the Computer Science Student Resource Site at WilliamStallings.com/StudentSupport.html. This site provides documents and links on a variety of subjects of general interest to computer science students (and professionals).

         He is a member of the editorial board of Cryptologia, a scholarly journal devoted to all aspects of cryptology. He is a frequent lecturer and author of numerous technical papers. His books include Data and Computer Communications, Eighth Edition (Prentice Hall, 2007), which has become the standard in the field.

         Dr. Stallings holds a PhD from M.I.T. in Computer Science and a B.S. from Notre Dame in electrical engineering.

Customer Reviews

Unconvential, yet very useful.
I liked this book's organization. I have also Tanenbaum's and Silberschatz's; what I concluded it's that this book, even if sometime appeared to be a bit ... compacted on some "traditional" issues (if I can judge them this way on the basis of the other two books, but processes' statuses are covered here better than anywhere else), it has given space to some other very interesting ones, starting from Security, and going on with SMP topics.

I particularly enjoyed the view it adopted even on common topics. E.g. the emphasis it gave to subtleties like distinguish the nature of the four requirements for deadlocks, the classification of various policies and mechanism (in a astonishingly efficient way) for topics like scheduling, paged memory issues or the importance of interrupts as The tool for modern techniques and achievements.
And ... the chapter on security has been a lifesave for me on the last days of the course.

Keep this book near to Tanenbaum's second edition of "Modern Operatin System" if you can, and you'll have plenty of good material for a typical OS course.

A well-presented text, with superb material
I bought this book for my first year Operating Systems course at University, and in my opinion it is one of the best books I have invested in. Stallings presents the material well, with numerous examples on advanced topics such as Semaphores, and provides the reader with up-to-date material on both Windows 2000 and Linux. Stallings has done it again - this book is superb!

Truly Excellent Book!
I just finished grad school in Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I borrowed this book from my Professor and after reading it for a while I am now buying it to use as a reference on the job. I can state quite confidently that it is one of the best OS books I have read. I strongly recommend this book for university coursework, particularly at the undergraduate level.