Reading List for the Operating Systems and Architecture PhD Exam

The core knowledge for this exam is a thorough and sophisticated understanding of the following courses.

CS 341 (Computer Organization)
CS 441 (Computer Architecture)
CS 481 (Operating Systems)
CS 485/585 (Networks)
CS 587 (Advanced Operating Systems)

Note: CS 585 is a new addition to the list, and the material will be phased into the exams over time. Although there will be networking questions included on the January 2003 and August 2003 exams as optional choices, the material of CS 585 won't be required until January 2004.

General Operating Systems

Nutt, Operating Systems: A Modern Perspective, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley (2002).
Tanenbaum, Modern Operating Systems, 2nd edition, Prentice-Hall (2001).

Distributed Operating Systems

Tanenbaum and van Steen, Distributed Systems: Principle and Paradigms, Prentice-Hall (2002).
Coulouris, Dollimore, and Kidberg, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design, 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley (2001).
Chow and Johnson, Distributed Operating Systems and Algorithms, Addison-Wesley (1997).
Singhal and Shivaratri, Advanced Concepts in Operating Systems, McGraw-Hill (1994).
Nutt, Centralized and Distributed Operating Systems, Prentice-Hall (1992).

Networks

Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 4th edition, Prentice-Hall (2003).
Leon-Garcia and Widjaja, Communication Networks: Fundamental Concepts and Key Architectures, McGraw-Hill (2000).
Kurose and Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet, Addison-Wesley (2001).

Architecture and Organization

Hill, Jouppi, and Sohi, Readings in Computer Architecture, Morgan Kaufmann (2000).
Stallings, Computer Architecture and Organization: Designing for Performance, Prentice-Hall (2000).
Tanenbaum, Structured Computer Organization, 4th edition, Prentice-Hall (1999).
Hennessy and Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, 3rd edition, Morgan-Kaufmann (2002).