Systems

Hardware Essentials: From Chips to Systems Architecture In modern devices, hardware choices shape speed, power use, and cost. From tiny chips to complete systems, the decisions at each layer set the ceiling for software. Clear understanding of these parts helps you pick the right hardware for your goals. Chips are the smallest building blocks. A chip may host a CPU, GPU, memory controller, and other helpers. Transistors keep shrinking and efficiency improves with every new process. Yet real gains come from smarter design—how parts talk and coordinate, not just how many transistors exist. The same chip family can cover phones, tablets, and servers, but engineers tailor features for power, speed, and heat. ...

Containers vs Virtual Machines A Practical Comparison Containers and virtual machines are both ways to run software in isolation. They aim for portability and predictable behavior, but they do it differently. This practical comparison helps teams decide which path fits a project, or how to use both together. What they are Containers package an app and its dependencies into a compact unit that shares the host operating system kernel. Virtual machines run a full guest OS on a hypervisor, each with its own kernel. ...

Operating System Internals: A Deep Dive An operating system is the software that coordinates hardware and programs. If you think of a computer as a factory, the OS is the manager that assigns tasks, handles memory, and talks to devices. This article looks inside the system to explain how core parts work together, in plain terms. At the heart is the kernel, a small, trusted program that runs in privileged mode. It validates actions, schedules work, and protects memory. User programs run with limited rights, and every request to the hardware passes through system calls or traps. ...

A Practical Guide to Operating Systems and Process Management An operating system (OS) runs on a computer and coordinates all work. It decides which program uses the CPU, when memory is given, and how devices like disks and screens are shared. Process management is a key part of this task and affects how smoothly tasks run in everyday apps. At the core, a few ideas help you think clearly. A process is a running program with its own memory space. A thread is a lighter path inside a process that can run tasks in parallel. A process goes through a lifecycle: new, ready, running, waiting, and terminated. The OS uses CPU scheduling to pick the next ready process. Memory management maps virtual addresses to physical memory and protects data. I/O handling uses interrupts and queues to manage devices like keyboards and disks. ...

Go and Rust: Building Fast, Safe Systems Go and Rust are two popular choices for building fast, reliable software. They chase speed and safety in different ways. This article shares practical ideas to use them together, so you can ship robust systems without sacrificing performance. You will learn simple patterns, concrete rules, and starter ideas you can apply today to improve both speed and reliability across a real project. Rust gives you strong control over memory and safety at compile time. Its ownership rules help prevent data races and leaks, while zero-cost abstractions keep high-level code fast. Go focuses on simplicity: quick compilation, readable syntax, and a rich standard library. It handles concurrency with goroutines and channels, making scalable services easy to build and maintain even for teams new to systems programming. ...

Operating System Internals for Systems Programmers Operating systems hide many moving parts behind a simple interface. For systems programmers, knowing what lives inside the kernel helps you write faster, safer software and diagnose problems more quickly. This article gives a clear map of the main areas: memory, processes, I/O, and system calls. By grounding your work in these ideas, you can spot bottlenecks and design better interactions with the OS. ...

Virtualization and Containers: A Practical Guide Virtualization and containers help you run software in isolation. Virtualization creates full virtual machines that imitate hardware. Each VM has its own OS, memory, and storage. Containers, on the other hand, package an app with its libraries in a lightweight unit that shares the host OS kernel. This makes containers quick to start and easy to move between hosts. Choosing between them depends on needs. If you need strong isolation and different operating systems on the same hardware, virtualization is a clear fit. If you want fast start times, simple scaling, and consistent environments from development to production, containers are usually better. In practice, many teams use both: VMs as the stable host layer and containers inside for apps. ...

Mastering Operating Systems in the Real World On the surface, an operating system seems like a background piece of software. In the real world, it is the stage where every program runs. Mastery means more than typing commands; it means understanding how processes live, how memory is allocated, and how devices talk to the CPU. A practical OS mindset helps you troubleshoot faster, plan upgrades, and keep systems reliable. Most jobs revolve around three activities: keeping systems up, making them fast, and keeping them safe. In practice, you handle boot issues, apply patches, check logs, and respond to alerts. You balance updates with stability, choose filesystems with reasonable defaults, and use backups before changing settings. Across Linux, Windows, and macOS, the same ideas apply: keep a clean baseline, document changes, and verify outcomes. ...

Understanding operating systems and system design An operating system (OS) is the software that runs your computer. It coordinates hardware, runs apps, and keeps things safe. Think of it as a manager that turns raw components into useful services. System design is about making that manager reliable, fast, and understandable for developers and users. Core components and roles The main parts are the kernel, libraries, and services. The kernel handles scheduling, memory, and input/output. Libraries give developers ready-made tools, while services offer features like networking or authentication. Together they create a stable environment where programs can run without fighting over resources. ...

Getting Started with Virtualization and Containers Virtualization and containers help you run software reliably on different machines. Virtualization creates full virtual machines with their own operating system and hardware emulation. Containers isolate your application and its dependencies inside shared OS, using less overhead and starting faster. Both tools improve consistency, reduce surprises from differences between development and production, and make it easier to experiment. Why choose one path? Virtualization is useful when you need different operating systems, strong system isolation, or to run legacy software. Containers shine when you want fast deployment, easy scaling, and reproducible environments across laptops, servers, and the cloud. You can combine both, using VMs as hosts for containers in more complex setups. ...