Book Image

Mastering Linux Kernel Development

By : CH Raghav Maruthi
Book Image

Mastering Linux Kernel Development

By: CH Raghav Maruthi

Overview of this book

Mastering Linux Kernel Development looks at the Linux kernel, its internal arrangement and design, and various core subsystems, helping you to gain significant understanding of this open source marvel. You will look at how the Linux kernel, which possesses a kind of collective intelligence thanks to its scores of contributors, remains so elegant owing to its great design. This book also looks at all the key kernel code, core data structures, functions, and macros, giving you a comprehensive foundation of the implementation details of the kernel’s core services and mechanisms. You will also look at the Linux kernel as well-designed software, which gives us insights into software design in general that are easily scalable yet fundamentally strong and safe. By the end of this book, you will have considerable understanding of and appreciation for the Linux kernel.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
Index

Linux process scheduler design


Linux, which was primarily developed for desktop systems, has unassumingly evolved into a multi-dimensional operating system with its usage spread across embedded devices, mainframes, and supercomputers to room-sized servers. It has also seamlessly accommodated the ever-evolving diverse computing platforms such as SMP, virtualization, and real-time systems. The diversity of these platforms is brought forth by the kind of processes that run on these systems. For instance, a highly interactive desktop system may run processes that are I/O bound, and a real-time system thrives on deterministic processes. Every kind of process thus calls for a different kind of heuristic when it needs to be fairly scheduled, as a CPU-intensive process may require more CPU time than a normal process, and a real-time process would require deterministic execution. Linux, which caters to a wide spectrum of systems, is thus confronted with addressing the varying scheduling challenges...