Init

Operating Systems in Practice From Boot to Shutdown From power on to power off, an operating system coordinates work across hardware and software. This guide explains the practical journey, with everyday examples you can relate to at work or home. Boot and Initialization When you press the power button, firmware runs a quick check and hands control to a bootloader. The bootloader loads the kernel and a minimal set of drivers, plus an initial user-space environment (initramfs or initrd). In Linux, GRUB or systemd-boot loads the kernel image and then starts the first process. In Windows, the boot manager loads the kernel and core services in stages. The early phase sets up memory, devices, and essential services so the rest of the system can operate. ...