Operating System Fundamentals

This comprehensive reference is written for software developers, operating system designers, and computer science students who need a conceptual background in operating systems. It provides an overview of the main tasks faced by operating system developers and teaches the primary methods used to solve common problems. Rather than focus on one particular operating system, the book discusses general concepts and illustrates them with specific examples and references from a variety of systems, including DOS, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, UNIX, Linux, FreeBSD, Palm OS, IBM VM, OS/2, OS/390, and z/OS, and more. Understanding the classification of various formats, functions, processes, and architectures of these different operating systems is crucial for developing new systems or software that will run on these platforms.