# prereqs for "the design and implementation of the freebsd kernel"?



## unidef (Nov 28, 2019)

the book talks about some serious stuff, memory addresses, and general operating system design using kernel and hardware methodology

does anyone have any books they can recommend to prereq this book? something on hardware design, operating system design, etc, i got c covered, just not assembly, which ill learn after this book hopefully

they'll need to be published, well noted books so i can find them using my software


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## SirDice (Nov 28, 2019)

Not directly related to FreeBSD but you could start with relatively simple 8-bit CPU like a 6502, 6809 or Z80. I learned assembler on the C64 back in the day. Yes, they're simple but that's the whole point. The basic principles are largely the same and are easily transferred from that simple 8-bit to a modern 64 bit CPU.


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## tommiie (Nov 28, 2019)

I am facing the same issue. I have read a bunch of books on operating system design back in the days, e.g. the third edition of _Opering systems_ by Nutt. Perhaps that was too long ago and I need to refresh it or I will just have to read every chapter of _The design and implementation of the FreeBSD operating system_ twice or even thrice. Should I find any good book I could recommend, I will let you know.


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## unidef (Nov 28, 2019)

SirDice said:


> Not directly related to FreeBSD but you could start with relatively simple 8-bit CPU like a 6502, 6809 or Z80. I learned assembler on the C64 back in the day. Yes, they're simple but that's the whole point. The basic principles are largely the same and are easily transferred from that simple 8-bit to a modern 64 bit CPU.



thats a good idea, i think after i try to read a few books ill look into gameboy or nes assembly, i think i saw some open books on google


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## unidef (Nov 28, 2019)

tommiie said:


> I am facing the same issue. I have read a bunch of books on operating system design back in the days, e.g. the third edition of _Opering systems_ by Nutt. Perhaps that was too long ago and I need to refresh it or I will just have to read every chapter of _The design and implementation of the FreeBSD operating system_ twice or even thrice. Should I find any good book I could recommend, I will let you know.



thank you!!

really wish there was comments in the freebsd kernel for newbies, ill try to do that in a few months when this kernel makes sense


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## tommiie (Nov 30, 2019)

Agreed. It would be nice to have a commented version of the book or a more introductory text on the topic. If you want more developers, you need to make the operating system more accessible. I have other priorities* at the moment but I might later return to the book and add comment to it.

* I'm studying for my LPIC-2 certification and learning about jails and its networking possibilities (e.g. netgraph). I'm writing articles on those topics to make them more accessible as well.


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## rootbert (Nov 30, 2019)

I can recommend William Stallings "Operating Systems" ... I think you can download it legally, but not the most recent edition


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 1, 2019)

tommiie said:


> If you want more developers, you need to make the operating system more accessible.


Making it more accessible often means dumbing it down. 

While I agree that the book is a long, somewhat dry read, it's supposed to give you the exact information you need and adding emoticons and funny stories will lead to tripling the size and cost of the book. 

I doubt anyone reads it cover to cover in one sitting. I think one should consider it to be similar to a standard that no one reads cover to cover either but uses it as a reference. I don't know that I'd consider it to only be a reference but if one were to be serious about learning the internals of FreeBSD then one should expect to be in deep thought about the tiny details without concern of how well it will run their game.


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