Thread: Book on Linux API in C

Yo, are there any books that cover the Linux API in C?

I haven't seen any in the local bookstores or library, but I'm sure there's gotta be at least one good book.
From my experiences and what I hear, a lot of computer related books tend to be more like observations
about the subject, rather than the actual instruction of the subject. So please don't reference what you can not actually recommend.

I'm eagerly awaiting my (used) copy of this to arrive:

Amazon.com: Professional Linux Kernel Architecture (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (9780470343432): Wolfgang Mauerer: Books

So I can't really say if it is as good as it looks yet. I'm presuming by "linux API" you mean the kernel, since linux is an OS kernel, so the kernel API would be "the linux API".

However, if you just mean a guide to glibc, the C library used on GNU systems, this is the reference manual:

The GNU C Reference Manual - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

There's html on line or pdf to download. If you want to download the HTML, something like:

Code:

 
wget -r -np -k -p http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-c-manual/gnu-c-manual.html

should work.

Precisely. It is Linux, the kernel, that has an API. Identifying Linux as a kernel when trying to identify its API is unnecessary.

That book seems good by looking at it's table of contents.

But I'm always suspicious of anything that has titles like "Professional" or is by a company that puts out a lot of programming books like "Wrox" or has introductory chapters that are overviews, histories, about setting up, about using enviornments, or about using tools, or when you can flip through any chapter and not see a complete source code example and plenty of smaller bits of code referencing it.

Those books tend to suck. They're more observational than instructional. You learn ABOUT something, but not how to DO something, implement a concept, unless you were already developing on that level, which, as we go down towards the kernel Linux, a lot of us aren't.

I was looking at Linux Kernel Programming (3rd edition) and Professional Linux Programming (not as much as the other). I'll see if I can find a pdf of yours to check it out and perhaps just try buying one of these and see how it turns out.

I like a couple of books for Linux programming; one of the best for Linux specifically I have found to be "Linux System Programming by Robert Love" a well-known kernel hacker. Another that I like is the Advanced UNIX Programming series (I have vols 1-3) by Stevens. Most of my best Linux books are at work so will have to consult them and get back. Oh yeah would also heavily recommend Programming POSIX Threads, forgot who did it but it is quite good.