Motivation

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The predecessor to Linux, UNIX, was one of the best-designed operating systems of its time. Many of the underlying operating system concepts embedded in UNIX have been adopted by other operating systems, including Windows and Linux. Knowledge of how the system works can aid in designing high-performance Linux applications. For example, knowledge of the internals of the virtual memory system can help you arrange data structures so that the amount of information transferred between main and secondary memory is minimized. In summary, knowledge of Linux internals is useful for two reasons: as a source of reusable information that may help you in designing other similar systems, and to help you design high-performance applications.