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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!inferno.mpx.com.au!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!simtel!lll-winken.llnl.gov!venus.sun.com!news2me.EBay.Sun.COM!engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM!cathy!bonwick From: bonwick@cathy.eng.sun.com (Jeff Bonwick) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals,comp.unix.sys5.r4,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.osf.osf1,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.programmer,misc.books.technical,alt.books.technical Subject: Re: New Book on Unix Internals Date: 21 Nov 1995 08:46:00 GMT Organization: Sun Lines: 25 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <48s3k8$l1p@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> References: <bapat.816081191@gate.net> <48kror$okh@nntp.atlanta.com> <48pb0h$bou@pretzel.cs.huji.ac.il> NNTP-Posting-Host: cathy.eng.sun.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.internals:9323 comp.unix.sys5.r4:10480 comp.unix.solaris:51959 comp.unix.osf.osf1:10841 comp.unix.bsd.misc:334 comp.unix.programmer:30865 misc.books.technical:6841 alt.books.technical:4210 > "UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers" > Uresh Vahalia > Prentice Hall > ISBN 0-13-101908-2 Someone mentioned that this book describes the Solaris 2.4 kernel memory allocator. That's my baby, so naturally I was curious to see if he got it right. So I picked up a copy of the book this weekend. Man, I am impressed. He covered all the major points in quite a bit of detail (6 pages), and it's all spot-on accurate. The writing is uncommonly clear -- in some places I think he does a better job than my own Usenix paper! -- and it's evident from various comments and diagrams that the author truly *gets it*. The rest of the chapter on memory allocation is equally excellent, covering all the major allocators and providing insightful comparative analysis. (One addendum: the author notes that the 2.4 allocator would benefit from a per-CPU caching layer. Done in Solaris 2.5.) I haven't read the whole thing yet, but if the section on memory allocation is any indication, this book is a real gem: up-to-date, thorough, and *very* accurate. Jeff Bonwick Solaris Performance