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Books about BSD
User Guides
"Berkeley UNIX" (now known as "BSD", for Berkeley System Distribution)
is so widely known that there is no need to list
the basic "how-to" books about it here - there are too many to list!
Some of the user guides cover exclusively the System V version, or
some specific implementation such as Solaris, Linux, or whatever,
while others try to be general. There are some that cover Berkeley UNIX.
Books about the System
- The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System
Marshal Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels, John S. Quarterman
Addison-Wesley: 1996. ISBN 0-201-54979-4.
- At 549 pages plus index. this must be considered comprehensive.
McKusick, Bostic and Karels are well known as prime movers at
Berkeley CSRG (Computer Systems Research Group) during the 4.3/4.4BSD
period. This book covers the 4.4 and 4.4-Lite releases, and discusses
everything you wanted to know about how the system operates. Not
100% applicable, but probably the closest there is to an overall
system internals manual for OpenBSD.
- The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD Unix Operating System
Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick
- An earlier book from many of the same good folk at CSRG.
Slightly dated, but gives an overall feel for the beast if you can find
it real cheap at a garage sale.
- The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD Unix Operating System : Answer Book
Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick
1991
- Answers to the "exercises for the reader" in the 4.3 version of the book.
- Virtual Memory System Source Code Secrets: The 386BSD
Operating System Reference
L. W. Jolitz, William Jolitz
1997
- The Jolitzs built the first port of BSD to the PC-386 architecture,
and deserve a lot of credit for making BSD portable to this low-cost
architecture. The earliest versions, called "386bsd", were described
in articles in Dr. Dobbs Journal. This book goes beyond the articles,
and provides a comprehensive annotated collection of source code.
Not all of it applies to modern versions of OpenBSD, of course, but
you can still learn a lot from it.
- 4.4 BSD System Manager's Manual (SMM)
O'Reilly, 1994
- Details on what you need to run a BSD system.
Quite a bit of this material is relevant to OpenBSD.
Unfortunately it and the remaining books from O'Reilly
are currently listed as out of print.
- 4.4 BSD Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM)
O'Reilly, 1994
- This is a printed version of the Programmer's Manual.
You have the online man pages, which are specific to OpenBSD, instead.
- 4.4 BSD User's Reference Manual (URM)
O'Reilly, 1994
- Man pages for users. Same note as above; use the man command.
- BSD-Lite 4.4 CD-ROM Companion: International Edition
UC Berkeley Staff, Computer Systems Research Group; O'Reilly, 1994
- This neat little package contains a CD-ROM with just the unbundled
portions of 4.4BSD-Lite-1, which not only is obsolete, but is not a
complete, bootable system.
Buy an OpenBSD CD-ROM instead!
- Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition with Source Code,
Peer-to-Peer ommunications, 1996. ISBN 1-57398-013-7.
Although the UNIX described in this book is to BSD as a Model T Ford
is to a 70's Mustang or Thunderbird, UNIX inventor Ken Thompson
claims that "After 20 years, this is still the best exposition
of the workings of a 'real' operating system." Originally circulated
in illicit photocopies, this is the book that most first- and second-generation
UNIX hackers cut their code-teeth on. Recommended as a good introduction
to how a timesharing OS works, if you've not been inside one before.
Substantially shorter than the McKusick book above.
www@openbsd.org
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