Modern Operating Systems By Tanenbaum

 

This article reviews the book “Modern Operating Systems” by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Herbert Bos.

The article covers-

• Special features of book
• Analysis of Content
• Analysis of Exercises
• Necessary Instructions
• Conclusion

 

Why Should Be Read?

 

Special Features of Book-

 

The special features of this book are-

• It strikes a good balance between the theory and problems.
• The topics are explained in sufficient details which makes it pretty good.
• The clear and concise diagrams and tables make it interesting to read the book.
• The book is suitable for beginners as well as intermediate students.
• The language used while explaining the topics is simple and straight forward.
• The topic of Memory Management is covered in an elaborative and clear way.
• Of all the textbooks present on this subject, this book has the best exercise questions.
• The questions are of good quality and sufficient for GATE preparation.

 

Analysis of Content-

 

The following table analyzes sections of the book that are relevant for GATE-

 

Chapter No.	GATE Relevant Sections	GATE Topics Covered
1	1.1 to 1.3	Introduction to Operating Systems (Optional to Read)
	1.5
	1.6
2	2.1	Process Management
	2.2	Threads
	2.3	Inter-Process Communication
	2.4	Process Scheduling (First Come First Serve, Round Robin etc)
	2.5	Classical Inter-Process Communication Problems (Producer-Consumer, Dining Philosophers etc)
3	3.1	Memory Abstraction
	3.2
	3.3	Virtual Memory
	3.4	Page Replacement Algorithms (FIFO, LRU, Optimal etc)
	3.5	Paging Design and Implementation Issues
	3.6
	3.7	Segmentation
4	4.3 to 4.5.2	File Management System
5	5.1 to 5.3	Input Output (Overlaps with Computer Organization Syllabus)
	5.4.1 to 5.4.4	Disk Scheduling Algorithms
6	All Sections	Deadlock

Covering Only These Sections Is Enough

 

Analysis of Exercises-

 

The following table analyzes exercises of the book that are relevant for GATE-

 

Chapter No.	Question No.
1	4, 5, 10, 11, 13, 14,15, 24
2	5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 32, 33, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 51, 54, 55
3	2, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 33, 35, 36, 38, 42, 44, 45, 47
4	12, 13, 16, 18, 23, 24, 25, 32, 36, 37, 38, 40
5	5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 28, 31, 32, 37
6	5, 8, 14, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 34

Practicing Only These Exercises Is Enough

 

Necessary Instructions-

 

Keep the following instructions in mind while reading the book-

• The book has nearly 1100 pages.
• If you concentrate on just GATE syllabus, the number of pages reduce significantly.
• The topics of process management and memory management are the focused areas in GATE exam.
• Keep making quality notes while reading the book. This will help you to solve theoretical questions.
• GATE focuses on numerical questions from this subject. So, practice all the above questions.
• Try to implement the process scheduling algorithms and inter-process communication problems.

 

Conclusion-

 

• The text book covers the entire GATE syllabus and much more than that.
• The best part of the book is its exercise questions and at par with the questions asked in GATE.
• The book covers tricky topics like inter-process communication in an elaborative and fun to read way.
• The book is sufficient for theoretical as well as numerical questions.

 

THIS BOOK IS SELF-SUFFICIENT FOR GATE EXAM.

 

 

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Other Recommended Books-

 

Operating Systems By William Stallings-

 

 

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