本书是一本操作系统的入门教材，适用于本科三、四年级或研究生一年级学生，还适用于相关工程技术人员。本书清晰地描述了操作系统的基本概念。

本书直观地描述了概念，也阐述了重要理论结论，但省略了形式化的证明。参考文献中给出了有关研究论文，其中有的论文首次提出并证明了这些结论，有的资料是可供进一步阅读的参考材料。本书还通过使用图表和实例来代替证明，以说明结论的正确性。

PART ONE  OVERVIEW

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Operating-System Structures

PART TWO  PROCESS MANAGEMENT

Chapter 3 Processes

Chapter 4 Threads

Chapter 5 CPU Scheduling

Chapter 6 Process Synchronization

Chapter 7 Deadlocks

PART THREE MEMORY MANAGEMENT

Chapter 8 Main Memory

Chapter 9 Virtual Memory

PART FOUR STORAGE MANAGEMENT

Chapter 10 File-System Interface

Chapter 11 File-System Implementation

Chapter 12 Mass-Storage Structure

Chapter 13 I/O Systems

PART FIVE  PROTECTION AND SECURITY

Chapter 14 Protection

Chapter 15 Security

PART SIX  DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Chapter 16 Distributed System Structures

Chapter 17 Distributed File Systems

Chapter 18. Distributed Coordination

PART SEVEN SPECIAL-PURPOSE SYSTEMS

Chapter 19 Real-Time Systems

Chapter 20 Multimedia Systems

PART EIGHT CASE STUDIES

Chapter 21 The Linux System

Chapter 22 Windows XP

Chapter 23 Influential Operating Systems

Appendix A UNIX BSD (contents online)

Appendix B The Mach System (contents online)

Appendix C Windows 2000 (contents online)

Bibliography

Credits

Index