Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 1680 pages
• Published by: Addison-Wesley Professional June 29, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0321278542
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0321278548
• Book Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 2.6 inches
• Weighs: 5.4 pounds

 "Overall, I recommend this book to anyone that wants a deeper understanding of the internals of the Macintosh. If you are a developer, this is a must-have book."--Justin Williams, Founder, Maczealots.com

"It's a book that every administrator and developer of almost any kind of hardware and software would want to own. It explains the how as opposed to the what of OS X more clearly, thoroughly and intelligently than any other book on the market."--Mark Sealey, Contributing Editor, ThinkSecret.com

Back Cover Copy


Mac OS X was released in March 2001, but many components, such as Mach and BSD, are considerably older. Understanding the design, implementation, and workings of Mac OS X requires examination of several technologies that differ in their age, origins, philosophies, and roles.

Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach is the first book that dissects the internals of the system, presenting a detailed picture that grows incrementally as you read. For example, you will learn the roles of the firmware, the bootloader, the Mach and BSD kernel components (including the process, virtual memory, IPC, and file system layers), the object-oriented I/O Kit driver framework, user libraries, and other core pieces of software. You will learn how these pieces connect and work internally, where they originated, and how they evolved. The book also covers several key areas of the Intel-based Macintosh computers.

A solid understanding of system internals is immensely useful in design, development, and debugging for programmers of various skill levels. System programmers can use the book as a reference and to construct a better picture of how the core system works. Application programmers can gain a deeper understanding of how their applications interact with the system. System administrators and power users can use the book to harness the power of the rich environment offered by Mac OS X. Finally, members of the Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unix communities will find the book valuable in comparing and contrasting Mac OS X with their respective systems.

Mac OS X Internals focuses on the technical aspects of OS X and is so full of extremely useful information and programming examples that it will definitely become a mandatory tool for every Mac OS X programmer.



Reader Reviews
I had the opportunity to review the draft manuscript of Amit Singh's Mac OS X Internals book. With so many different types of operating systems books out there, let me try to place the book to give a better idea what to expect. There are general introduction books that normally introduce the operating system to the reader, without explaining what is actually going on. We have concept books (I put "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System" in this category) which are usually a good introduction to a new system. I used to be a great fan of this type of books, and I still enjoy reading them, but I don't anticipate much new from them. The fact is that operating systems today differ not that much in concepts and abstractions but more in their implementation. Then we have the kernel programming books that either cover the kernel programming in general, like Linux Kernel Internals, or focus on specific parts of the kernel, like Linux Device Drivers. The Mac OS X Internals book falls into a category that I call OS Internals books category. Books in this category (like the popular Inside Windows books) are similar to the concept books in the sense that they are not focusing on solving some predefined problems, but rather share knowledge. They differ from the concept books in that they approach the concepts from implementation point of view. In recent years I have become a great fan of this type of books. Books in this category are both very enjoyable for anyone interested in the OS but also very useful for application developers. Actually Amit's book does start off as more of a concept book, and in the first part of the book he gives a great overview of the Mac OS X system, which should be an interesting read even for people not using Mac, but with general interest in operating systems. I found it particularly interesting to read because OS X is so different from other operating systems I know and love, like Linux and Solaris. We've all heard how Mac OS X is built on top of the Mach kernel, uses large parts from BSD, supports backward compatibility via the Carbon API, etc. Not until I had read the first part of this book I fully understood how all the pieces fit together. In my opinion the first two chapters are rich enough in content and interesting and fun to read for me to recommend this book to anyone interested in operating systems, regardless if they will ever do any programming on a Mac. The remaining parts of the book cover OS X in a logical order, from the bottom up. Since the book is more focused on educating the reader of how things work rather that trying to teach how to do some particular task (like a network programming book would do) it is important to realize that the book is covering a lot of content, which may not all be of interest to you. If you are more interested in some particular area it is probably wise to jump directly to the appropriate chapter. The book covers a lot, including the xnu kernel, the boot process, and the role of the firmware. It covers typical OS topics, like processes, virtual memory management, IPC, file systems, and the I/O Kit. What made these chapters especially interesting was to see exactly what part the Mach kernel plays here. While reading the book I have to say that I have become a great fan of Amit's style. He manages to find a good balance between breadth and depth in his coverage, while keeping the text interesting. Each chapter covers each topic to a reasonable level. He achieves the depth by carefully selecting parts where he drills in quite extensively. Here he uses examples to clarify things. His examples are almost all excellent, both usually short, and to the point. The examples both lend the reader a first hand experience with some low level concepts, but also work as a starting point for the reader to actually try out things for themselves. Amazingly the examples usually don't require anything special beyond the normal dev setup. Meaning, you don't have to do any kernel programming to run most of the examples, which is great for application programmers like me. After reading this book, I can recommend this book to anybody interested in operating systems and to all developers for the OS X system. OS enthusiasts will get a great overview of the Mac OS X system which will allow them to compare OS X to their own system, be it Linux, Windows, or Solaris. OS X application developers will probably gain the most from this book. This is not a kernel programming book but a book that builds up a strong base for application programmers. Whereas the book is not directly covering any specific class of API, Cocoa, Carbon or POSIX, it builds up a very strong base. For example, after reading the IPC chapter, things like Cocoa notification, Cocoa tasks and threads, remote objects, all become very clear. It will also make it much easier for anyone familiar with for instance Carbon or POSIX to move to Cocoa, because you will understand the common part of the API you know and the new one. Finally, for anyone doing anything advanced in Mac OS X, this book is a must have. Comment | | (Report this)