With a foreword from Dennis Ritchie, co-creator of Unix and sole inventor of the C programming language, which stresses both standards and quality literature with regard to the longevity of such an aging operating system, this updated and totally classic title is well assured of its pedigree. The original work, penned by Stevens and published way back in 1992 has long been considered one of the great works within the canon of computing literature.

Only the most seasoned kernel hacker with an eminent dislike for well written documentation could argue with this updated classic title which as well as quite obviously being the last printed word on device drivers also provides good code-driven insights into the kernel. In the words of this work's subtitle, device drivers are "where the kernel meets the hardware," and such an interface is obviously of great interest to anyone studying OS, the Linux kernel or computer science in general.

Silence On The Wire rises head and shoulders above other security-related titles with which it may well share shelf-space. Purportedly dealing with reconnaisance and indirect attacks, this title offers a thrilling, low-level introduction to all manner of security issues, with an emphasis on core knowledge. Rather than offering bland practical tutorials, Silence breaks the mould for such titles, in presenting intriguing methodologies, anecdotes and essential background.

This long anticipated work has become something of a livre celebre in the geek world, acting as signifier of the refreshed popularity of this flexible language after years in obscurity and perhaps also signalling to one major publisher that perhaps its time to call off the veto on producing Lisp-based titles. Hardcore Lispers, with little need for such an introductory text, boast of how many copies they purchased in advance, and Amazon sales ranks are bandied about on a few high profile blogs.

Whether online or printed, earlier editions of this great work have been around for well over ten years, and it does look like this worthy guide, which sets itself up as a one stop shop for all networking needs, will be with us for a good while. Originally developed by volunteers as part of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP), and readily available online in slightly different form and under a suitable license, this title has been extensively reworked to bring the new edition up to date with changes and contemporary technologies such as wireless networking and LDAP.

The shell is something of a hot topic at the moment, which is as it should be given that it presents a primary and incredibly versatile interface to the OS. Indeed, such an interface can readily be regarded as an essential part of any operating system, mediating as it does between user and hardware abstractions.

O'Reilly always take care that current publications are of contemporary interest and fill a well perceived gap in the current information market. Thus the release of a much updated third edition of a classic work which last saw revision over ten years ago, and was first published nearly seventeen years ago is something of a momentous occasion, perhaps signaling a new lease of life for this popular and incredibly versatile text-based environment.

Although it's thoroughly possible to argue against this work's major premise, that knowledge of low level assembly language is essential in order to write great high-level code, and whilst such arguments would make for interesting reading and promote further discussion of an essential topic, any text which digs deep into the oft-ignored realm of compilation and machine code generation is to be totally applauded.