Chapter 14 — Terminal Line Discipline and a Kernel Monitor

Chapter 14 — Terminal Line Discipline and a Kernel Monitor
This entry is part 14 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

At this point our kernel has enough machinery to become interactive: Now we will build two new layers: The terminal line discipline turns raw keyboard characters into editable input lines. It handles: The kernel monitor is a small command loop: This is not user space yet. It is still a kernel thread. But it gives

Chapter 13 — Mutexes, Semaphores, and a Console Lock

Chapter 13 — Mutexes, Semaphores, and a Console Lock
This entry is part 13 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

In Chapter 12, we added wait queues and blocking keyboard input: Now we need synchronization primitives that ordinary kernel code can use. This chapter adds: A mutex provides mutual exclusion: only one thread may hold the protected resource at a time. OSDev describes a mutex as a mutual-exclusion mechanism, similar to a binary semaphore, used

Chapter 12 – Wait Queues and Blocking Keyboard Input

Chapter 12 – Wait Queues and Blocking Keyboard Input
This entry is part 12 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

In Chapter 11, we added the first blocking primitive: That gave the scheduler a way to remove a thread from the ready queue until a future timer tick. Now we need a more general primitive: This is the foundation for real kernel I/O. A keyboard reader should not spin like this: It should block: This

Chapter 11 — Blocking Primitives, Sleep Queues, and Scheduler Hygiene

Chapter 11 — Blocking Primitives, Sleep Queues, and Scheduler Hygiene
This entry is part 11 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

In Chapter 10, we added timer-driven preemption: Now we need the next scheduler capability: blocking. A runnable thread competes for CPU time. A blocked or sleeping thread does not. OSDev describes a blocking process as one that waits for an event, such as a semaphore or message, and is removed from the active scheduling queue

Chapter 8 – Moving the Heap onto Virtual Memory

Chapter 8 – Moving the Heap onto Virtual Memory
This entry is part 8 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

In Chapter 6, the kernel heap still depended on low identity-mapped physical pages. That worked as a bootstrap step, but it tied the heap to the first 16 MiB of RAM. In Chapter 7, we added a real VMM and proved that the kernel can map and unmap pages anywhere the page tables allow. That

Chapter 7 — A Real Virtual Memory Mapping Layer

Chapter 7 — A Real Virtual Memory Mapping Layer
This entry is part 7 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

In Chapter 5 we enabled paging, but only with a fixed identity map: In Chapter 6 we built a heap, but it still had an important weakness: because only the first 16 MiB were identity-mapped. Now we fix the architectural problem. This chapter adds a small virtual memory manager, or VMM: This lets the kernel

Chapter 6 — Building the First Kernel Heap

Chapter 6 — Building the First Kernel Heap
This entry is part 6 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

In Chapter 5, we enabled paging with a simple identity map: That gave us a working paged kernel, but not yet a comfortable way to allocate variable-sized objects. The physical memory manager gives us whole pages: But kernel code usually needs smaller objects: So this chapter builds the first kernel heap. We will keep it

Chapter 5 — Turning On Paging

Chapter 5 — Turning On Paging
This entry is part 5 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

In Chapter 4, we built the first memory-management layer: Now we add the next layer: paging. Paging lets the CPU translate a virtual address into a physical address through page tables. In 32-bit x86 paging without PAE, a virtual address is split into a page-directory index, page-table index, and page offset; page directories and page

Writing a Linux-style Operating System From Scratch

Writing a Linux-style Operating System From Scratch
This entry is part 1 of 38 in the series Writing A Linux Style Operating System From Scratch

Today, we are beginning a new article series: “Writing a Linux-Style Operating System From Scratch.” In this series, we will walk step by step through the process of creating our own operating system from the ground up. Many operating system tutorials stop shortly after the system boots and prints a simple message on the screen.

An Introduction to C for Arduino Users

Explore the essentials of C programming tailored for Arduino users. This comprehensive guide covers variables, data types, control structures, functions, arrays, and pointers, with practical code examples to help you harness the full potential of the Arduino platform.