The Audience for This Book
All people curious about how Linux works and why it is so efficient will find answers here. After reading the book, you will find your way through the many thousands of lines of code, distinguishing between crucial data structures and secondary ones—in short, becoming a true Linux hacker.
Our work might be considered a guided tour of the Linux kernel: most of the significant data structures and many algorithms and programming tricks used in the kernel are discussed. In many cases, the relevant fragments of code are discussed line by line. Of course, you should have the Linux source code on hand and should be willing to expend some effort deciphering some of the functions that are not, for sake ofbrevity, fully described.
On another level, the book provides valuable insight to people who want to know more about the critical design issues in a modern operating system. It is not specifically addressed to system administrators or programmers; it is mostly for people who want to understand how things really work inside the machine! As with any good guide, we try to go beyond superficial features. We offer a background, such as the history of major features and the reasons why they were used.
给本书的读者
如果你对Linux如何工作以及Linux为何如此高效充满好奇，那么你将在本书中找到相应的答案。在读完本书之后，你会在数以千计的代码中找得到你的方向，并且能够区分哪些是关键的数据结构，而哪些又是次要无关的——简言之，你将成为真正意义上的“红客”。
本书可以作为Linux内核的导览资料：本书将讨论大部分重要的数据结构和许多算法以及编程技巧，甚至在很多情况下，我们会逐行分析相关的代码段。当然，你的手头上应该有一份Linux源码，并且愿意付出精力去弄懂那些没有全部讨论清楚的功能——当然这是因为我们沽名钓誉（谦词—译者按）。
从另外一个层面来说，本书为那些想要了解更多现代操作系统的关键设计问题的读者提供了相当有价值的思路；本书不是专门为那些操作系统管理员或者操作系统程序员所编写的，更大程度上是为那些想弄懂操作系统内部是如何工作的人所写的。正如其他优秀导览书籍一样，我们努力超越那些肤浅花哨的表面而深入探讨这些特性的背景以及由来，以及这些重要的特性为什么要这样使用。