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Fundamentals

Operating Systems

Master the OS concepts that interviews, exams and debugging actually test: processes vs threads, scheduling, deadlocks, virtual memory, paging, file systems and I/O — with visual mental models for each.

Intermediate
6 weeks
8 modules · 37 lessons
STACKSHADE / COURSE
Fundamentals

Operating Systems

LEARNER OUTCOMES

What you should be able to do

  • Explain exactly what happens from main() to process exit
  • Reason about races, locks and deadlocks in real code
  • Demystify virtual memory, paging and the TLB
  • Ace OS rounds in interviews and university exams
TOPIC FORMAT

Every topic has two modes

Read — deep article with diagrams, artifacts and retrieval.

Present — focused deck with notes, pointer, timer and fullscreen.

Review — spaced review queue with due dates and recall ratings.

Focus — Pomodoro sessions, daily goals and a persistent scratchpad.

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Read → predict → inspect → retrieve. Your progress stays on this device.

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STUDY LOOP

Designed around learning, not scrolling

Each topic now has the full loop: article, visual explanation, artifact, retrieval and a recordable presentation.

Retrieval

Recall before revealing. The attempt is part of the learning action.

Spacing

Return at increasing intervals instead of rereading everything immediately.

Generation

Predict the next state or answer before seeing the worked version.

Dual coding

Pair compact prose with diagrams, traces, tables and motion.

Feynman

Teach the idea back in plain language to expose missing links.

Interleaving

Contrast nearby problem types so recognition becomes more useful.

CURRICULUM

Pick a topic

What an OS actually does: abstraction + arbitration
Video12 min
ReadDeck
User mode vs kernel mode, rings, and the syscall path
Video14 min
ReadDeck
Interactive: trace a read() from C code to disk
Interactive12 min
ReadDeck
Interrupts, traps and the timer that keeps processes honest
Video12 min
ReadDeck
FEYNMAN PROMPT

Teach user vs kernel mode as a restaurant: customers (user) must ask the kitchen (kernel) through waiters (syscalls).

ACTIVE RECALL
Why can't a process just access hardware directly?

Protection and fairness: one buggy/malicious process could corrupt everything. The CPU enforces privilege levels; only the kernel runs privileged instructions.

What does the timer interrupt guarantee?

The OS regains control periodically no matter what a process does — enabling preemptive multitasking.

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