building an os

introduction

Building an operating system requires understanding of both hardware and software fundamentals. This post will cover the basics of boot process, memory management, and process scheduling.

boot process

bootloader

The bootloader is the first piece of code executed when a computer starts up. It's responsible for loading the operating system kernel into memory.

kernel initialization

After the bootloader loads the kernel, the kernel initializes various hardware components and sets up memory management, interrupt handling, and other core services.

memory management

Memory management is a critical component of any operating system. It involves tracking and allocating memory to processes, handling virtual memory, and implementing paging or segmentation.

process scheduling

Process scheduling determines how CPU time is allocated to different processes. Various scheduling algorithms like round-robin, priority-based, and shortest job first can be implemented depending on the use case.