Summary

This chapter introduced some core kernel functionalities that will be used in the next few chapters of this book. The concepts we covered concerned bit manipulation to Linux kernel interrupt design and implementation, through locking helpers and work deferring mechanisms. By now, you should be able to decide whether you should split your interrupt handler into two parts or not, as well as know what locking primitive suits your needs.

In the next chapter, we’ll cover Linux kernel managed resources, which is an interface that’s used to offload allocated resource management to the kernel core.