Chapter 12A: Operating Systems & Kernel Mechanics

Operating-system mechanics: the kernel mechanisms that execute programs, isolate memory, manage traps, and move data through files and asynchronous I/O.

• Processes & Threads: Execution Contexts, Inter-Process Communication (IPC), Thread Pools, Concurrency Bugs, and CPU Scheduling Algorithms (Preemption, MLFQ, Real-Time)
• Virtual Memory & Kernel Traps: Paging, Page Tables, Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB), Page Faults, Swap, Syscalls, User/Kernel Transitions, Interrupts, and Signals
• High-Performance File Systems & Low-Level I/O: Inodes, File Descriptors, POSIX I/O, Page Cache, Journaling, epoll vs kqueue, and io_uring Asynchronous Ring Buffers
• Chapter 12A: References