• Master x86 assembly language from a Linux perspective!

• Essential information for creating Linux device drivers

• How Linux works "under the hood!"

• Place-holding numeration

• Logic circuits

• Computation

• The four-field format

• Machine language

• Memory

• The stack

• Linux user programs

• NASM

• DOS programs

• Interrupts

• Bit manipulations

• Device drivers

• And more...

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 13 Ratings

Have to agree with other reviewers... - 2003-04-06
Reviewer Rating:
This book is disappointing to say the least.... No reference on AT&T syntax etc. The information presented is rather disparate & lacks coherency, very confusing & difficult to excogitate. As a neophyte, I would like to be able to access all references in a central location, where I can check the assembly command; see it's syntax; look up the CPU instruction; check it's syntax & see how it relates to the register in question, whilst at the same time I want a brief description of the register; what it's name means & what it does; have a list of system call numbers; their descriptions & functions etc. Kernel internals were briefly discussed but left much wanting. Free documentation served me much better. If you know what you want it's all availible online.

Not much specific about Linux. May be good for beginners - 2007-07-11
Reviewer Rating:
As other reviewers already mentioned, there's little about this book that is specific to Linux, besides brief mentions about system calls and how the Linux kernel manages memory using paging and doesn't use segmentation (although it did in earlier versions). The syntax used is also that of NASM, which is similar to MASM (Microsoft Assembler) and thus very different from the AT&T syntax used by the GNU tools such as GAS (the GNU Assembler). So don't get it expecting to see a lot of consideration about specific quirks to assembly programming under Linux.

But this would not fit into the book, anyway. It is clearly geared towards beginners: the material is quite basic and superficial, and assumes no previous knowledge of assembly, only a basic C programming background. The second chapter begins by describing the typical fetch-execute cycle of a CPU; this is very superficial and does not take account of pipelining, superscalar execution and other effects present in current processors. But it does give an idea about how the hardware works. Then there are chapters about arithmetic in different bases and binary signed arithmetic, a basic introduction to assembly, machine language, dealing with memory, the stack, and interrupts. Then there is a strange chapter in a book about Linux assembly language programming: DOS programs. It seems that the book was being prepared for DOS but then it became obsolete and the material was reworked to cater to Linux programmers.

Nevertheless, though quite basic and not enough about Linux, it can serve as a quick introduction to assembly programming for beginners. The organization could be better too, but I don't think it's that confusing. A beginner would have to look for other books after this, though, and an experienced programmer would be better off skipping it altogether.

It may have you losing your interests in reading... - 2008-04-05
Reviewer Rating:
This book was written in very poor style. "Discussions" are very obscure and I've found myself hard to keep up with the author's ideas. I cannot call it a hardware text, neither a software one. It is just a mixed in which many relating ideas are cursorily represented in a style of listing rather than discussion; it confuses rather than clarifies. Many occasions, you will find yourself in a desperate situation to understand what the author talks about. The book slows you down from reading due to its obscurity and disorganized representation. For beginners ??? no, forget about it...

Skip it - 2006-11-22
Reviewer Rating:
I didn't really find this book useful at all. I mean for one, it's titled as a Linux ASM book, but an entire chapter is focused on DOS assembly.

It's a very disorganized book and I wasn't able to write a single working assembly program using this book. I picked up the following book to get a grasp of assembly:

Assembly Language for Intel-Based Computers

Not Linux specific; examples might not even work in Linux but the book is awesome at explaining the ops, registers and give short examples.

Also jump on comp.lang.asm.x86... very helpful people.

Beginners only? - 2003-04-17
Reviewer Rating:
I'll admit, the title is more than a bit misleading. The book is written for an introductory course in assembly language programming, and that's what it does. All the assembly is in intel syntax, no AT&T, which is what is predominantly used in linux programming. However, it is good at what it is meant for. It teaches the reader about assembly language, and how the operating system works. I found it to be an extremely easy introduction, and I believe knowledge I've gained from it will allow me to move on toward more extensive programming. I've used C and assembly for many years on my own, and I found things in here which made much more clear the reasons behind some of the 'fluff' in my open source programming projects.

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