Linux® Kernel Primer, The: A Top-Down Approach for x86 and PowerPC Architectures

Chapter 1. Overview

In this chapter

• 1.1 History of UNIX 2

• 1.2 Standards and Common Interfaces 4

• 1.3 Free Software and Open Source 5

• 1.4 A Quick Survey of Linux Distributions 5

• 1.5 Kernel Release Information 8

• 1.6 Linux on Power 8

• 1.7 What Is an Operating System? 9

• 1.8 Kernel Organization 11

• 1.9 Overview of the Linux Kernel 11

• 1.10 Portability and Architecture Dependence 26

• Summary 27

• Exercises 27

Linux is an operating system that came into existence as the hobby of a student named Linus Torvalds in 1991. The beginnings of Linux appear humble and unassuming in comparison to what it has become. Linux was developed to run on machines with x86 architecture microprocessors with AT hard disks. The first release sported a bash shell and a gcc compiler. Portability ...