Chapter 1. Introduction

This chapter gives an overview of major features of Linux, as well as Unix kernels. This book is based on Linux 2.6.11 source code.

Linux Versus Other Unix-Like Kernels

Several differences between Linux and Unix implementations:

The Process/Kernel Model

Process Implementation

Process descriptor contains registers:

Reentrant Kernels

A kernel control path denotes the sequence of instructions executed by the kernel to handle a system call, an exception, or an interrupt.

Process Address Space

Synchronization and Critical Regions

Signals and Interprocess Communication

Process Management

Memory Management


Doubts and Solutions

Verbatim

Chatper 1 on Linux Versus Other Unix-Like Kernels [p3]:

Linux uses kernel threads in a very limited way to execute a few kernel functions periodically; however, they do not represent the basic execution context abstraction.

Summary

Kernel Architecture