Thanks, Adam for the advice :) Yes, I think I will jump straight into the Linux kernel; there are specific things that I want to accomplish, and as much as I'd /love/ to spend time studying many different OSes, time doesn't permit that, unfortunately. Anyway, thanks again for you reply :) -Andrew > > On March 18, 2002 08:50, Andrew Nesbit wrote: > > Hi everybody... this is my first post to kernelnewbies :) > > Ahoy hoy! > > > I was just wondering if it would be worthwhile for me to study the > > Minix source before Linux's? Or would I be better off just jumping > > straight into the deep end and learning Linux straight off? > > Pedagogically, Minix is probably easier to learn because its got a book based > around it. I started to read said book last fall and its a good read. If > you are interested in learning about operating systems and the more modern > school of design, Minix would be a good place to start before moving on to > Mach or Hurd. > > If you want to learn something practical or Linux is a specific goal, then > getting one of the O'Reilly books on the Linux kernel might be more practical > for you. They too focus on the specific implementation of the 2.2 and 2.4 > kernels and are good books. Maurice Bach and Kirk McKusick, et. al. have > also done great (but a little more academic) books on Unix operating > systems. > > Unfortunately, the implementation knowledge is not transferrable. As you may > know, Linux is a monolithic kernel while Minix is a microkernel. They are > quite different design philosophies. There's extensive debate on which is > better and you can even find a Usenet thread where the designers of Linux and > Minix duked it out as to which one was better. > > I'm getting tangential. Study Minix if you want to learn the theory of > modern operating systems and study Linux if you want to learn about modern > Unix operating systems. > > Systems software is a really exciting field. I hope you find something to > get you started in it. Good luck! -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
