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<chapter id="intro">

  <?dbhtml filename="intro.html" ?>

  <title>Introduction</title>

  <para>This book describes the design and principles of the HelenOS operating

  system from the perspective of its microkernel as well as from the

  perspective of its userspace drivers and server tasks. Its primary goal is

  to present ideas behind each subsystem and highlight things that are

  specific to HelenOS. Although this text contains references to source code

  (e.g. function names), these are provided only to improve reader's

  orientation when reading the code. This book does not attempt to be a

  substitute for a reference manual and the reader is strongly encouraged to

  look for interface details there.</para>

  <section>

    <title>How to read this book</title>

    <para><xref linkend="architecture" /> contains overview of the overall HelenOS architecture.</para>

    <para><xref linkend="ds" /> describes essential data structures used both in the kernel and in the userspace.</para>

    <para><xref linkend="time" /> focuses on time management in the kernel and scheds some light on the userspace source of time.</para>

    <para><xref linkend="scheduling" /> is dedicated to threads and the scheduling subsystem.</para>

    <para><xref linkend="mm" /> describes memory management of physical and virtual memory.</para>

    <para><xref linkend="ipc" /> deals with the IPC subsystem.</para>

    <para><xref linkend="hardware" /> describes facilities that a userspace task can use in order to become a device driver.</para>

    <para><xref linkend="archspecs" /> presents some architecture specific issues.</para>

  </section>

</chapter>