Operating System Concepts for Backend Developers

Define what a process is and the resources it encapsulates (memory address space, file descriptors).

Explain the difference between threads and processes, and how they relate to concurrency and parallelism.

Explain what context switching is and its performance implications for servers.

Describe stack vs. heap memory and how a running program uses each.

Explain file descriptors and how the OS represents open files, sockets, and pipes.

Compare blocking, non-blocking, and asynchronous I/O models with concrete examples.

Describe the role of an event loop (e.g., using epoll/kqueue) in high-concurrency servers.

Use process monitoring tools (`ps`, `top`, `htop`) to inspect process status and resource consumption.