Operating System Kernel Fundamentals: Building a Multitasking OS in C

Understanding how an operating system interacts with hardware is essential for writing efficient, reliable software. This text-based course guides you through the fundamental inner workings of OS kernels and the low-level mechanics of system execution. You will progress from core concepts to writing code for a simple multitasking kernel. What you will learn: Understand foundational OS kernel architecture, CPU execution modes, and interrupt handling. Learn how memory layout, stack management, and paging operate at the hardware boundary. Build bare-metal C programs using the GNU C compiler, linker scripts, and Make files. Implement basic process scheduling, context switching, and multitasking routines. Explore modern system topics like hardware privilege levels and basic virtualization patterns. Starting with essential low-level terminology and hardware concepts, the course walks you through structuring kernel components step by step. Designed for beginner systems programmers and software engineers looking to understand low-level architecture, no prior OS development experience is required. Start reading today to deepen your computer architecture knowledge and construct your first operating system kernel.