Chapter 2 Getting Started with the Kernel

Branch Annotation

if (likely()) {
}
if (unlikely()) {
}

Chapter 3 Process Management

The Process

To Linux, a thread is just a special kind of process.
On modern operating systems, processes provide two virtualizations: a virtualized
processor and virtual memory.The virtual processor gives the process the illusion that it
alone monopolizes the system, despite possibly sharing the processor among hundreds of
other processes. Chapter 4,“Process Scheduling,” discusses this virtualization.Virtual
memory lets the process allocate and manage memory as if it alone owned all the memory
in the system.Virtual memory is covered in Chapter 12,“Memory Management.