That said, others here have recommended C instead or in addition to Rust or Go; this makes sense to me.
C is actively used and remains the lingua franca of low/system level programs (for the time being.) I'd also say that its relatively simple syntax and closeness to the underlying representation have a lot going for it (at least what you'd imagine the underlying assembly representation to be - hardware and clever compilers are doing a lot.)
The C language is simple, more than either Rust or Go, and can be picked up quickly, in my view. But actually understanding and using it competently is an altogether different matter.
Additionally, an absolute wealth of books introducing OS, drivers, and system and network programming topics using C exist. Projects like Xv6, Minix, and even Linux provide for code bases to run through and explore
- Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective [0]
- The Linux Programming Interface [1]
- Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment [2]
- Dive into Systems [3]
And the list goes on and on.
You'll likely never write production code or push production projects in C (one hopes), but it seems to me that it remains a very useful language to be able to work with and to understand.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers-Perspect...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Environment-Addison-Wesle...
1. Systems Operations is first and foremost about understanding systems, in all of their complexity, which means understanding the internals of your OS primarily.
2. Performance and networking, in particular, are super important areas to focus on understanding when it comes to learning the topic to help with software development.
3. A lot of it is about understanding concepts in abstract and being able to extrapolate to other situations and apply these concepts, so there's actually quite a lot of useful information that can be learned on one OS and still applied to another OS (or on one game engine and applied to another, et al).
Here's a few books I think are worth reading, not in any particular order of prevalence, but loosely categorized
Databases:
High Performance MySQL: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449314287/
SQL Queries for Mere Mortals: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321992474/
The Art of SQL: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596008945/
Networking:
TCP/IP Illustrated: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0201633469/wrichards... (updates on author's site at http://www.kohala.com/start/tcpipiv1.html)
The TCP/IP Guide: https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Guide-Comprehensive-Illustrated-P...
UNIX Network Programming: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0131411551
Beej's Guide to Network Programming: http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/
Operating Systems:
Operating Systems Concepts: https://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Sil... (various editions, I have the 7th edition... I recommend you find the latest)
Modern Operating Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Operating-Systems-Andrew-Tanen... (the "Tanenbaum Book")
Operating Systems Design and Implementation: https://www.amazon.com/Operating-Systems-Design-Implementat-... (the other one, the "MINIX Book")
Windows Internals:
Part 1: https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Internals-Part-architecture-m...
Part 2: https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Internals-Part-2-7th/dp/01354... (I had the pleasure of being taught from this book by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon at a previous employer, was an amazing class and these books are incredible resources even applied outside of Windows, we used 5th edition, I linked 7th, which has the 2nd part pending publication).
MacOS Internals:
Part 1: https://www.amazon.com/MacOS-iOS-Internals-User-Mode/dp/0991...
Part 2: https://www.amazon.com/MacOS-iOS-Internals-II-Kernel/dp/0991...
Part 3: https://www.amazon.com/MacOS-iOS-Internals-III-Insecurity/dp...
Linux Kernel Programming:
Part 1: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Development-Cookbook-pro...
Part 2: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Programming-Part-Synchro...
The Linux Programming Interface: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
General Systems Administration:
Essential Systems Administration: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596003439/
UNIX and Linux Systems Administration Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-Linux-System-Administration-Hand...
The Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible: https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Shell-Scripting-Bible/d...
UNIX Shell Programming: https://www.amazon.com/Unix-Shell-Programming-Stephen-Kochan...
BASH Hackers Wiki: https://wiki.bash-hackers.org/
TLDP Advanced BASH Scripting Guide: https://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
The Debian Administrator's Handbook: https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/
TLDP Linux System Administrator's Guide: https://tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/index.html
Performance & Benchmarking:
Systems Performance: https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Performance-Brendan-Gregg-dp-... (this is Brendan Gregg's book where you learn about the magic of dtrace)
BPF Performance Tools: https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tools-Addison-Wesley-Prof... (the newer Brendan Gregg book about BPF, stellar)
The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: https://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/books/perfbook.htm (no longer available from Amazon, but is available direct from publisher. This is basically the one book you should read about creating and structuring benchmarks or performance tests)
I guess that's a "reading list", but this is just a small part of what you need to know to excel in systems operations.
I would say for the typical software developer writing web applications, the most important thing to know is how databases work and how networking works, since these are going to be the primary items affecting your application performance. But there's obviously topics not included in this list that are also worth understanding, such as browser/DOM internals, how caching and CDNs work, and web-specific optimizations that can be achievable with HTTP/2 or QUIC.
For the average software developer writing desktop applications, I'd say make sure you /really/ understand OS internals... at the base everything you do on a computer system is based on what the OS provides to you. Even though you are abstracted (possibly many layers) away from this, being able to peel back the layers and understand what's /really/ happening is essential to writing high-quality application code that is performant and secure, as well as making you a champ at debugging issues.
If you're trying to get into systems operations as a field, this is just a brush over the top surface and there's a lot deeper diving required.
All system call interfaces, as well as how system calls happen are thoroughly documented there. Though, I would just use libc, since all this stuff is a bit messy and have plenty of legacy stuff.
Another excellent reference is the "The Linux Programming Interface" book by Michael Kerrisk that documents most of the API available under Linux [3].
[1]https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201498413
[2]https://github.com/gon1332/gonlibs
[3]https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
Highly recommend this book, its filled with fun tidbits of Linux-lore.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
[0] RHCSA & RHCE Training and Exam Preparation Guide by Asghar Ghori. This book will help insure you know your stuff as your system engineer/administrator wise.
[1] A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editor and Shell Programming Third Edition. This book will cover the majority of what you would need and want to know when connecting to a remote linux system over ssh.
If you want to get under the hood and become an expert, the following books should help get you started:
[2] Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
[3] The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook
[4] Linux Kernel Development 3rd Edition
To get a nice general overview and get up and going quickly:
[5] How Linux works: What every superuser should know
[6] The Linux Command Line
[7] Python Crash Course
[8] Automate the boring stuff with Python. This is a great book to help you think about how to automate most of the repetitive things you will end up doing on a regular basis.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-RHCE-Red-Enterprise-Linux/dp/14...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Commands-Editors-Prog...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Programming-UNIX-Environment...
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Development-Robert-Love/...
[5] https://www.amazon.com/How-Linux-Works-Superuser-Should/dp/1...
[6] https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Command-Line-Complete-Introduct...
[7] https://www.amazon.com/Python-Crash-Course-Hands-Project-Bas...
[8] https://www.amazon.com/Automate-Boring-Stuff-Python-Programm...
https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...
The Linux Programming Interface: http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Han...
Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment: http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Programming-UNIX-Environment-...
A not-too-distant third choice, Linux System Programming: http://www.amazon.com/Linux-System-Programming-Talking-Direc...
What really sets this book apart, in my opinion, is just how readable it is. I haven't run across anything with quite the same combination of style and depth for Linux.
You could read through something like The Linux Programming Interface [1] or Understanding the Linux Kernel [2] and with effort extract much of the same information, but without the pace/structure/commentary that I think this book does so well.
Thing is, conceptually much of what you'll read in this book will be applicable to Linux just fine and having read it will make it far easier to grok how/where the two differ.
1: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1593272200 2: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596005652
I encountered many of these while reading through Understanding The Linux Kernel [0] and The Linux Programming Interface [1].
Both are great books which are primarily about the "how" of the kernel, but cover a lot of the "why" of the design and algorithms as well.
If I was a web developer using Meteor, I imagine I would come to a similar conclusion about this book - with the exception that because it's online, the authors can update it over time.
http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Han...
- "Practical Filesystem Design": http://www.nobius.org/dbg/practical-file-system-design.pdf
- "Robert Love: Linux Kernel Development (chapters 13-14)" https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Kernel-Development-Robert-Love/...
- "The Linux Programming Interface (File I/O chapters)": https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System-Ha...