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Geremi Wanga
Geremi Wanga

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Past the JVM

Learning Java got me thinking how exactly does things word under the hood.. I'm not talking about Java in Particular I'm mentioning programming in General how does a command I Write on my shell or bash terminal get executed in the machine

  • What role does the kernel play in all of this
  • And who does all the heavy lifting internally is it the kernel or the hardware

I did research on all of this let me walk you through it

The user and the shell

When I type a command, the shell interprets it and decides which actions to take.

System Calls

The shell issues system calls eg fork(), execve(), and open() to request services from the kernel.

Kernel to Hardware

The kernel handles the system calls, communicates with device drivers, and interacts with hardware safely and in a controlled way.

Back to user

The output appears in the terminal all of this happens in milliseconds

What so great about all this is how every user program, not just the shell, uses system calls to communicate with the kernel. It’s like a controlled gateway to the operating system

I'd like to do more research about this Java in particular this time we'll go under the

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