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System Programming in Linux
SystemsFrom-scratch C systems training: filesystems and permissions, the build process, fork() and a hand-built shell, Unix utility clones, memory allocation, static/dynamic linking, OOP patterns in C, FreeRTOS concepts, and building a minimal Linux distro.
- 01Linux File Systems & Partitions CheatsheetEverything from raw disk layout down to how a single file's data gets located on disk, as a working reference: partition tables (MBR and GPT), the Unix filesystem's internal structure, inodes and…7 min read
Abdallah Shehawey
- 02Understanding Fat32FAT — the File Allocation Table — is one of the oldest file systems still in everyday use. It shipped as the default for MS-DOS and the Windows 9x family, dating back to 1977, originally designed for…3 min read
- 03User Management & File Permissions Deep DiveEverything from "who am I" through user/group administration to the full permission model — standard rwx bits, ACLs, and the special SUID/SGID/sticky bits that make commands like passwd work at all.5 min read
- 04The C Build Process & LibrariesTurning a .c file into a running program is four distinct steps, each of which gcc can be told to stop after — which is also exactly how to inspect what's happening at every stage. This also covers…4 min read
- 05Misra C: Coding Rules for Safety-critical CMISRA C (from the Motor Industry Software Reliability Association) is a set of coding guidelines aimed at one goal: making C — a language full of undefined and implementation-defined behavior —…5 min read
- 06Building a Minimal Arm Linux Distro with QemuBuilding a Linux distribution from scratch — kernel, root filesystem, init process — makes the pieces that normally hide behind a distro installer completely visible. This walks through doing it for…5 min read
- 07Process Creation with Fork()fork() is the one system call responsible for every process on a Linux system except PID 1 — it duplicates the calling process into two, and everything downstream (shells launching commands, servers…5 min read
- 08Building a Shell From ScratchA shell is just a loop: read a line, figure out what it means, run it, repeat. The interesting part is everything "run it" hides — process creation, the exec family, PATH searching, environment…5 min read
- 09Reimplementing Unix Utilities in CThe best way to actually understand a syscall is to reimplement the tool that's built on it. These small clones of cat, cp, echo, mv, pwd, and fdisk each isolate one or two POSIX calls — read/write,…4 min read
- 10Dynamic Memory & the Heapmalloc() and free() look like they manage memory directly, but they actually sit on top of a much simpler primitive — sbrk(), which just moves a single pointer called the program break. This walks…3 min read
- 11Static vs Dynamic Linking in CA small worked example makes the static-vs-shared distinction from the C build process lesson in this track concrete: the exact same four-function math library, built both ways, linked against the…3 min read
- 12Object-oriented Patterns in CC has no class keyword, no inheritance, no virtual dispatch — and yet embedded C codebases reimplement all three constantly, because the underlying need (model a peripheral once, reuse the model…4 min read
- 13A Tour of Freertos ConceptsTwo ideas trip up almost everyone new to RTOS programming: what a "context switch" actually moves in memory, and when to reach for a mutex versus a semaphore. Both are concrete enough to walk through…4 min read
- 14Building a Minimal X86 Linux Distro with BuildrootThe manual ARM/QEMU build earlier in this track does every step by hand — cross-compiler, kernel config, BusyBox, hand-written init, on purpose, to see each piece. Buildroot automates that entire…3 min read
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