Linux System Programming: Talking Directly to the Kernel and C Library - Softcover

Love, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449339530 ISBN 13: 9781449339531

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 2013

Synopsis

Write software that draws directly on services offered by the Linux kernel and core system libraries. With this comprehensive book, Linux kernel contributor Robert Love provides you with a tutorial on Linux system programming, a reference manual on Linux system calls, and an insider’s guide to writing smarter, faster code.

Love clearly distinguishes between POSIX standard functions and special services offered only by Linux. With a new chapter on multithreading, this updated and expanded edition provides an in-depth look at Linux from both a theoretical and applied perspective over a wide range of programming topics, including:

• A Linux kernel, C library, and C compiler overview
• Basic I/O operations, such as reading from and writing to files
• Advanced I/O interfaces, memory mappings, and optimization techniques
• The family of system calls for basic process management
• Advanced process management, including real-time processes
• Thread concepts, multithreaded programming, and Pthreads
• File and directory management
• Interfaces for allocating memory and optimizing memory access
• Basic and advanced signal interfaces, and their role on the system
• Clock management, including POSIX clocks and high-resolution timers

About this title

Review

Q&A with Robert Love, author of "Linux System Programming, 2nd Edition"

Q. Why is your book timely-- what makes it important right now?

A. Developing system software on Unix has always been in vogue, but we've seen a large increase in demand with the rise of the cloud and the web. Where before user apps were primarily client-side, UI-focused programs, now system-level software running in huge data centers at massive scale provides even the simplest of our computing functionality. The code powering the largest of cloud-based providers such as Google or Twitter down to the smallest startup is all system-level software. And nearly all of it runs on Linux.

Q. What information do you hope that readers of your book will walk away with?

A. The system API on Linux: what it is and how to use it as an expert. The book is an API reference manual, of course, but it is also chock-full of anecdotes, insider tips, and Linux-specific techniques that take it beyond your generic Unix API guide.

Q. What's the most exciting thing happening in your space?

A. Definitely the ever-increasing scale of distributed systems that power the cloud and web apps we all use. I work at Google on web search infrastructure; the scale and scope of our systems is absolutely stunning. And, at the end of the day, it is all just Linux system code running on (a very large number of) Linux machines.

Q. What are some of the topics readers will learn in the second edition of Linux System Programming?

• How to design your multithreaded application for maximum performance
• How to efficiently perform I/O
• The pitfalls behind real-time processes
• How to take advantage of modern hardware such as multicore processors or SSDs
• Why your program's I/O model dictates its threading model

Book Description

Talking Directly to the Kernel and C Library

Edition details

• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1449339530
• ISBN 13: 9781449339531
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 454