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The third edition of this book differs from the second edition in numerous ways. To start with, the chapters have been reordered to place the central material at the beginning. There is also now more of a focus on the operating system as the creator of abstractions. Chapter 1, which has been heavily updated, introduces all the concepts. Chapter 2 is about the abstraction of the CPU into multiple processes. Chapter 3 is about the abstraction of physical memory into address spaces (virtual memory). Chapter 4 is about the abstraction of the disk into files. Together, processes, virtual address spaces, and files are the key concepts that operating systems provide, so these chapters are now placed earlier than they previously had been.

Chapter 1 has been heavily modified and updated in many places. For example, an introduction to the C programming language and the C run-time model is given for readers familiar only with Java. In Chapter 2, the discussion of threads has been revised and expanded reflecting their new importance. Among other things, there is now a section on IEEE standard Pthreads.