See MIPS Run

Great book! Lots of details on what MIPS processor families are what and how specifically they are used by Linux. A must have for people running Linux on MIPS.

As a developer of a MIPS softcore (YARI, an FPGA implementation), I find this book to be an excellent reference and highly readable. While it doesn't cover 100% of the intricate details, it comes remarkable close. Since the long and intricate history of the many many revisions of the MIPS architecture can be hard to follow, I was very excited to find a comprehensible account of this and many of the reasons why. The writing style is engaging and light - remarkable for a topic that easily comes out dry.

I'm just getting started on a project involving embedded MIPS systems, and this book has been very helpful in easing my way into this new world. Very well written, and it assumes the right level of knowledge. Not so basic that it explains every concept of architecture design, but not so advanced that it requires any previous experience. I highly recommend this for getting your feet wet with MIPS programming.