[ale] Kernel

[Joe Knapka]

Michael Hirsch wrote:
> 
> I've been reading "Linux Kernel Internals" by Beck et al., published
> by Addison-Wesley.  I'm finding it fairly readable.  It only goes up
> to 2.0, so it is a bit dated, but a lot better than nothing.
> 
> --
> --Michael

I have that book, and I've read a great deal of it, but
it seems rather more confusing than informative. I think
that's because it is rather short on examples in some
places. And it is quite out-of-date now.

Bach's "The Design of the Unix Operating System" is very
good, though not Linux-specific. I think Bach would be
a good thing to read before "Linux Kernel Internals."

A while ago I started a little WWW project exposing
the kernel as I explored it. Since I'm not a kernel
expert, it was by no means authoritative, but it
seems to me that there are not too many sources of
information directed at newcomers to the kernel code.
Linux is a great learning tool, but books like "L.K.I"
and the "Kernel Hacker's Guide" are directed (either
by design or due to the author's unconscious assumptions)
at an audience of people who are quite familiar with
kernel issues (multiprocessing, hardware interfaces,
etc.) I wanted to present both my pre- and mis-conceptions,
and the actual state of affairs in the kernel code,
so that someone who was scratching their head in
the middle of something like "L.K.I." could surf over
and go, "Oh, so THIS is what I thought they were
saying, but THAT's what's really going on."
I had gotten as far as a fairly detailed account of
the task-switching mechanism (on Intel hardware) and
surrounding machinery before I got distracted by
other things.

Unfortunately, since I switched from Mindspring
to Charter's cable service, I have no place from
which to host those pages. (Charter Pipeline's
customer support eats pond scum. Fast as hell,
but try getting them to set up a web-hosting
account...)

Perhaps we could, as a group, work on building up
a collective set of kernel explore-and-explain
WWW pages? Maybe someone could host a Wiki?
If a host were available, I'd be willing to
start out by posting the pages I have on hand.
I would host them on my firewall machine, but
unfortunately I don't have a static IP. Any
takers?

-- Joe Knapka
* I speak only for myself, except when the little transceiver
* at the base of my skull is activated...