Loading the Linux Kernel

In a general sense, the kernel manages the system resources. As the user, you do not often interact with the kernel, but instead you interact with the applications that you are using. Linux refers to each application as a process, and the kernel assigns each process a number called a process ID (PID). Traditionally, the Linux kernel loads and runs a process named init, which is also known as the “ancestor of all processes” because it starts every subsequent process. Ubuntu has replaced init with Upstart, which is being written by Ubuntu developers and made available for any distribution to use, but this chapter walks through the traditional method first because Upstart allows for backward compatibility for those services ...

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