9.3. System Initialization and Process Creation
While the exact sequence is highly vendor dependent, the system
initialization usually involves the following steps. The kernel
- tests to check the amount of memory available.
- probes and configures hardware devices. Some devices are usually
compiled into the kernel and the kernel has the ability to autoprobe the
hardware
and load the appropriate drivers or create the appropriate
entries in the
/dev directory.
- sets up a number of lists or internal tables in RAM.
These are used to keep track of running processes, memory allocation,
open files, etc.