We have now completed our introduction and bird’s-eye view of the operating system. It is time to get down to the details. As mentioned, from the programmer’s point of view, the primary purpose of an operating system is to provide some key abstractions, the most important of which are processes and threads, address spaces, and files. Accordingly the next three chapters are devoted to these topics.

Chapter 2 is about processes and threads. It discusses their properties and how they communicate with one another. It also gives a number of detailed examples of how interprocess communication works and how to avoid some of the pitfalls.

In Chap. 3 we study address spaces and their adjunct, memory management. The important topic of virtual memory will be examined, together with paging.

Then, in Chap. 4, we come to the topic of file systems. To a considerable extent, what the user sees is the file system. We will look at both the file-system interface and the file-system implementation.

Input/Output is covered in Chap. 5. We will cover the concept of device (in)dependence using examples such as storage devices, keyboards, and displays.

Chapter 6 is about deadlocks, including ways to prevent or avoid them.

At this point, we will have completed our study of the basic principles of single-CPU operating systems. However, there is more to say, especially about advanced topics. In Chap. 7, we examine virtualization. We discuss both the principles, and some of the existing virtualization solutions in detail. Another advanced topic is multiprocessor systems, including multicores, parallel computers, and distributed systems. These subjects are covered in Chap. 8. Another important subject is operating system security, which we cover in Chap. 9.

Next we have some case studies of real operating systems. These are UNIX, Linux, and Android (Chap. 10), and Windows 11 (Chap. 11). The text concludes with some wisdom and thoughts about operating system design in Chap. 12.