Kernel Projects for Linux (with CD-ROM)

Rating:
Summary: flat out horrible
Review: hate it. i'm a computer science senior. even though i myself don't use a linux box you'd think i should be able to work with one... and i bet i can but this book is NO help. there are obvious errors which just send you in frustrating circles until you figure out that the author is just wrong. it's horribly written and impossible to understand. some might argue that it's not an introductory book. fine i'll give you that if you want to subject yourself to this confusion. but for an operating systems class it's a horrible way to learn. you'll lose more hair than you will gain knowledge (if you manage to gain any at all). i think i've said enough, you get where i'm coming from. looking at the other reviews you either love or hate this book. i hate it.

Rating:
Summary: The Book kept its promise
Review: I must full agree with the author's review. This book is by no means a self help reference book and hence, need to be bought by people who has the time and initiative to diligently dig through Linux literature, theory, pertinent to each excercise group.

I have given 5 stars to this book because this book is what it claims to be. There are a group of projects with very nicely graded difficulty level. Each group contains very good pointers as to how to attack the problem and where to look for, in order to solve them. The absence of a full fledged solution is what I like best about this book. The author has very wisely kept back the solutions, because there is no better way to learn Linux then to look into relevant parts of the source code. But without this book the word "Relevant Parts" doesnt makes sense, because the Linux kernel is a huge chunk of code, and for any beginner its absolutely overwhelming. Its even hard to decide, that where to start reading the source code.

Thats where this book is very very helpful. Each excercise exposes the reader to a very well defined part of the kernel, and the reader gets a thorough understanding after she has successfully solved that part. I feel that this book is one of its kind in the market. However the book couldve done without the fundamentals, because cramming linux or any UNIX like OS fundamentals in 49 pages is a sheer compromise. Instead the book couldve had some more problems, to span the entire width of Linux.

Rating:
Summary: I HATE THIS BOOK
Review: I spend a lot of time to read the book
but it let me so frustration and feel like a oaf!

for example the chap five, p 111

this kind of book should use ready-to-run short examples to
tell the reader what the hell inside the computer memoey
and how the cpu begins their life whenever power-on!

Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP!
Review: I'm a computer science major who found this to be the worst CS book I've ever encountered. The introductions to each topic are minimal and uninformative. Then Nutt gives exercises for each topic, but the introductions for each are so lacking that you have to look at OTHER sources to attack the exercises. In fact, not reading Nutt's book is much more helpful than reading it. I'm dumber for having read this.

Rating:
Summary: Poor implementation
Review: The idea of this book is good. However the implementation is very poor. There are obviously errors and inaccuracies in guidelines and hand-on tips provided for linux in the exercises. And author can not even provide solutions to the exercises in the book on public website. It give up half of its value.

It's an immature book, which is surprised to get published by accredited Addison Wesley.

Rating:
Summary: VERY , VERY OUTDATED.....
Review: This book is based on a previous , very old kernel of Linux... Need I say more ? Well, I will anyways ... the really exciting part of writing code for Linux is when you start writing modules and device drivers .And here is where it starts getting ridiculous and the book goes downhill because the newer versions of the kernel have a TOTALLY different procedure from writing modules and device drivers..... The examples might work with the version of Linux included with the book but that too is a very old version. This can be a very good book if it is updated to programming the 2.4.x kernel.

I would suggest looking at kernelnewbies.org and some mailing lists for ideas on new projects. Also "Writing Linux Device Drivers" which is available free of cost in pdf format is a good book.

Rating:
Summary: What happened to the editor?
Review: This book is disgustingly unedited. Whatever happened to the concept of editing a book before publishing it? This book has caused nothing but headaches for me.

Rating:
Summary: the best for kernel novices
Review: This title is the best introduction to Linux kernel. Most of the Linux kernel books consider that readers are experts to operating systems concepts or maybe that they belong to the Linux code maintainers "ring". This certainly is not the case with "Linux Kernel Projects" where before each exercise every theme is explained well to the averange reader.

Rating:
Summary: I liked it, but...
Review: This was actually quite an interesting book. I found the assignments interesting, and challenging yet able to be completed for the most part.

Now we come to the problem. When you are asked to answer a question in an assignment, and you contact the author of the book and the "creators" of Linux who both agree the question can not be answered as asked, we get into a bit of weirdness.

Even the author says the "official" solution to some of the problems in the book are done in exactly the way he requests them not to be done in the book, simply because it is impossible to solve the problem in Linux as asked.

So, if you're looking for something that makes you think about ways to accomplish assigned tasks, this is a good book. If you want a book without errors and having all questions capable of being answered as asked, this is not as good of a book.
Therefore I give it 3 stars, to put it right in the middle.

Rating:
Summary: I liked it, but...
Review: This was actually quite an interesting book. I found the assignments interesting, and challenging yet able to be completed for the most part.

Now we come to the problem. When you are asked to answer a question in an assignment, and you contact the author of the book and the "creators" of Linux who both agree the question can not be answered as asked, we get into a bit of weirdness.

Even the author says the "official" solution to some of the problems in the book are done in exactly the way he requests them not to be done in the book, simply because it is impossible to solve the problem in Linux as asked.

So, if you're looking for something that makes you think about ways to accomplish assigned tasks, this is a good book. If you want a book without errors and having all questions capable of being answered as asked, this is not as good of a book.
Therefore I give it 3 stars, to put it right in the middle.