4.3 Context SwitchingThe kernel switches among threads in an effort to share the CPU effectively; this activity is called context switching. When a thread executes for the duration of its time slice or when it blocks because it requires a resource that is currently unavailable, the kernel finds another thread to run and context switches to it. The system can also interrupt the currently executin..

Run-Time OrganizationThe kernel can be logically divided into a top half and a bottom halfThe top half of the kernel provides services to processes in response to system calls or traps. This software can be thought of as a library of routines shared by all processes. The top half of the kernel executes in a privileged execution mode, in which it has access both to kernel data structures and to t..

3.1 Kernel OrganizationThe FreeBSD kernel can be viewed as a service provider to user processes. Processes usually access these services through system calls. Some services, such as process scheduling and memory management, are implemented as processes that execute in kernel mode or as routines that execute periodically within the kernel.In this chapter, we describe how kernel services are provi..