BOOK · [4979]
The Design of the UNIX Operating System
Technology
Bach's detailed account of how the UNIX kernel actually works internally, ending with a catalog of system calls. Torvalds used it as a practical implementation reference while bootstrapping Linux, going through its list of system calls and marking each with a star in his copy as he implemented it. He calls it one of the two main books behind early Linux, complementing Tanenbaum's more conceptual MINIX book.
Endorsed By
1 PERSON-
Linus Torvalds
“Bach's book about Unix... was more about the practical implementation of Unix and listed the actual system calls. In fact, at the end Bach's book is a list of system calls and my copy of that has small stars next to them because I started going through the system calls.”
From Torvalds' 2008 Computer History Museum oral history with Grady Booch, recounting the books he relied on while writing Linux in 1991.