Books on Operating System Design

These books cover OS Design as discussed in an undergraduate course. They all tackle the concepts, algorithms, problems, and solutions involved in designing a functional operating system. I recommend them all, but if I had to pick only one, the Deitel book seriously rocks.

H. Deitel, P. Deitel, and D. Choffnes . Operating Systems. Prentice Hall, 2003. An awesome tour de force on the theory of operating systems, with some excellent case studies putting the theory to practice. I helped tech edit it and this might make me biased, but I like to think that it makes the book that much better.

Tanenbaum, Andrew . Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. Prentice Hall, 1997. A great introductory work on both the design and implementation of a Unix-like system, Minix.

Tanenbaum, Andrew . Modern Operating Systems. Prentice Hall, 2001. A strong overview of the standard operating system design issues, plus discussion on many of the concepts used in today's modern operating systems, such as Unix and Windows.

A. Silberschatz, P. Galvin, and G. Gagne . Operating System Concepts. John Wiley and Sons, 2001. Also known as "the dinosaur book," for the seemingly irrelevant dinosaurs on the cover. A great introduction to OS design. The book has frequent revisions; any of them should do fine.