Memory management is a one of the most complex (and i think that it is the most complex) parts of the operating system kernel. In the [last preparations before the kernel entry point](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-3.html) part we stopped right before call of the `start_kernel` function. This function makes initialization of the all kernel features (including architecture-dependent features) before the kernel will run first `init` process. You may remember as we built early page tables, identity page tables and fixmap page tables in the boot time. No compilcated memory management is working now. Now as `start_kernel` function called we will see the transition to the more complex data structures and techniques for memory management. For good understand initialization process of the linux kernel we need to have clear understanding of the techniques. This chapter will provide overview of the different parts of the linux kernel memory management framework and its API and we will start from the `memblock`.
Memory management is a one of the most complex (and i think that it is the most complex) parts of the operating system kernel. In the [last preparations before the kernel entry point](http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-3.html) part we stopped right before call of the `start_kernel` function. This function makes initialization of the all kernel features (including architecture-dependent features) before the kernel will run first `init` process. You may remember as we built early page tables, identity page tables and fixmap page tables in the boot time. No complicated memory management is working now. Now as `start_kernel` function called we will see the transition to the more complex data structures and techniques for memory management. For good understand initialization process of the linux kernel we need to have clear understanding of the techniques. This chapter will provide overview of the different parts of the linux kernel memory management framework and its API and we will start from the `memblock`.
Ewoud Kohl van Wijngaarden
9 years ago