ChrisOS Research ProjectOperating systems · language systems · graphics · machine emulation
DOCUMENTATION ARCHIVEMAIN BRANCH
ChrisOS/English/Learning path
In this chapter

Learning path and prerequisites

The sequence organizes the corpus into levels, modules and chapters. A missing entry is an explicit gap, not a published chapter. Word count is only an editorial signal, not evidence of mastery or technical completeness.

Learning map

01 · Matter, devices and logic

Charge and semiconductor physics

Chapter State Prerequisites
Atom, electrical charge and semiconductor physics Text floor met; technical review required —
Crystal structure, energy bands and doping Text floor met; technical review required Atom, electrical charge and semiconductor physics
P-N junctions and semiconductor interfaces Text floor met; technical review required Crystal structure, energy bands and doping
Transistors and CMOS logic Text floor met; technical review required Atom, electrical charge and semiconductor physics; Crystal structure, energy bands and doping; P-N junctions and semiconductor interfaces

Boolean functions and circuits

Chapter State Prerequisites
Boolean algebra and logic representation Text floor met; technical review required Transistors and CMOS logic
Combinational circuits Text floor met; technical review required Boolean algebra and logic representation
Adders, ALUs and finite-width arithmetic Text floor met; technical review required Boolean algebra and logic representation; Combinational circuits

State, time and memory cells

Chapter State Prerequisites
Logic, state and sequential circuits Text floor met; technical review required Transistors and CMOS logic; Combinational circuits
Latches, flip-flops and metastability Text floor met; technical review required Combinational circuits; Transistors and CMOS logic
Registers, counters and state transitions Text floor met; technical review required Latches, flip-flops and metastability; Adders, ALUs and finite-width arithmetic; Logic, state and sequential circuits
Clocking, propagation delay and the meaning of time Text floor met; technical review required Logic, state and sequential circuits; Latches, flip-flops and metastability; Registers, counters and state transitions
SRAM, DRAM and the memory abstraction used by ChrisOS Text floor met; technical review required Transistors and CMOS logic; Logic, state and sequential circuits; Clocking, propagation delay and the meaning of time

02 · Representation and algorithms

Bits, types and layout

Chapter State Prerequisites
Data representation, memory layout and pointers Text floor met; technical review required Clocking, propagation delay and the meaning of time

Cost models and structures

Chapter State Prerequisites
Algorithm analysis and systems cost models Text floor met; technical review required Data representation, memory layout and pointers
Data structures for systems software Text floor met; technical review required Data representation, memory layout and pointers; Algorithm analysis and systems cost models
Algorithms used by ChrisOS Text floor met; technical review required Data structures for systems software

03 · Instruction execution and platform

ISA and instruction encoding

Chapter State Prerequisites
CPU datapath and instruction-set architecture Needs expansion Logic, state and sequential circuits
Machine code and instruction encoding (machine-code) Missing —
x86-64 registers and flags (x86-registers-flags) Missing —
x86 instruction encoding and addressing modes (x86-instruction-encoding) Missing —

Addressing and protection

Chapter State Prerequisites
x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state Needs expansion CPU datapath and instruction-set architecture
Privilege rings, transitions and protection (privilege-rings) Missing —

Memory hierarchy and concurrency

Chapter State Prerequisites
Caches and memory hierarchy (cache-hierarchy) Missing —
Cache coherence and multiprocessor memory (coherence) Missing —
Atomics, barriers and memory ordering (atomics-memory-model) Missing —

Devices and platform discovery

Chapter State Prerequisites
Buses, port I/O, MMIO and DMA Needs expansion CPU datapath and instruction-set architecture
PCI and PCI Express (pci-pcie) Missing —
ACPI and platform description (acpi-platform) Missing —

04 · From reset to kernel entry

Firmware and boot contracts

Chapter State Prerequisites
Processor reset and platform firmware (reset-firmware) Missing —
UEFI architecture and boot services (uefi) Missing —
Limine boot protocol (limine) Missing —
Boot information and memory-map validation (boot-information) Missing —

Executable layout and entry

Chapter State Prerequisites
ELF, object files and kernel linking Needs expansion CPU datapath and instruction-set architecture
Kernel linker script anatomy (linker-script) Missing —
Higher-half kernel layout (higher-half-kernel) Missing —
From power-on to kstart Needs expansion x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state

05 · Kernel, memory and execution contexts

Trust boundaries and exception entry

Chapter State Prerequisites
Kernel model and trust boundaries Needs expansion From power-on to kstart; x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state
GDT and TSS Text floor met; technical review required x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state; privilege-rings — missing
IDT, exception entry and interrupt frames Text floor met; technical review required GDT and TSS; x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state
PIC, Local APIC and IOAPIC routing Text floor met; technical review required IDT, exception entry and interrupt frames; Buses, port I/O, MMIO and DMA
PIT timing and scheduler tick semantics Needs expansion PIC, Local APIC and IOAPIC routing; IDT, exception entry and interrupt frames
Panic, serial diagnostics and kernel log Needs expansion IDT, exception entry and interrupt frames

Frames and address translation

Chapter State Prerequisites
Physical memory management Needs expansion Atom, electrical charge and semiconductor physics; x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state
Higher-half direct map (hhdm) Missing —
PMM allocation algorithms and invariants (pmm-algorithms) Missing —
Virtual memory and x86-64 page tables Needs expansion Physical memory management; x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state
PML4, PDPT, PD and PT (page-table-layout) Missing —
Page faults and fault containment (page-faults) Missing —
Process address spaces (address-spaces) Missing —
Translation Lookaside Buffer (tlb) Missing —

Concurrency and ownership

Chapter State Prerequisites
Interrupts and symmetric multiprocessing Text floor met; technical review required x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state; Kernel model and trust boundaries; IDT, exception entry and interrupt frames
TLB coherence and shootdown Needs expansion Virtual memory and x86-64 page tables; Interrupts and symmetric multiprocessing
Kernel heap, ownership and lifetime Needs expansion Physical memory management
Spinlocks and lock ordering (spinlocks) Missing —
Resource lifetime and teardown (resource-lifetime) Missing —
Kernel jobs and cooperative kernel threads Text floor met; technical review required Interrupts and symmetric multiprocessing; atomics-memory-model — missing
Executable memory, JIT and W^X (jit-memory) Missing —

User execution and process lifecycle

Chapter State Prerequisites
User-mode entry and controlled return to ring 0 Text floor met; technical review required GDT and TSS; Virtual memory and x86-64 page tables
Native processes and system calls Needs expansion Virtual memory and x86-64 page tables; Kernel model and trust boundaries; User-mode entry and controlled return to ring 0
Safe user-memory access Text floor met; technical review required Virtual memory and x86-64 page tables; User-mode entry and controlled return to ring 0
Process lifecycle and state Text floor met; technical review required Virtual memory and x86-64 page tables; Physical memory management; User-mode entry and controlled return to ring 0

06 · Languages, compilers and runtimes

Compiler construction

Chapter State Prerequisites
Compiler construction: source text to executable semantics Needs expansion CPU datapath and instruction-set architecture; ELF, object files and kernel linking
Lexical analysis (lexical-analysis) Missing —
Parsing and grammars (parsing) Missing —
Semantic analysis and type systems (semantic-analysis) Missing —
Intermediate representations (intermediate-representation) Missing —
Native code generation (native-codegen) Missing —
Calling conventions and stack frames (calling-conventions) Missing —

ChrisC and CLVM execution

Chapter State Prerequisites
ChrisC and the CLVM execution model Needs expansion Compiler construction: source text to executable semantics
CLVM bytecode format (clvm-bytecode) Missing —
CLVM memory and isolation (clvm-memory) Missing —
CLVM syscall ABI (clvm-syscalls) Missing —
CLVM interpreter (clvm-interpreter) Missing —
CLVM JIT (jit) Missing —
Debugger and source mapping (debugger) Missing —
Libraries, modules and garbage collection (gc-libraries) Missing —

Native toolchain

Chapter State Prerequisites
KCC, ChrisAsm, ChrisO and ChrisLd Needs expansion Compiler construction: source text to executable semantics; ELF, object files and kernel linking
KCC architecture and C profile (kcc) Missing —
ChrisAsm (chrisasm) Missing —
ChrisO object format (chriso) Missing —
ChrisLd (chrisld) Missing —

07 · Persistent state and filesystems

Block transport and media

Chapter State Prerequisites
Block storage stack Needs expansion Buses, port I/O, MMIO and DMA
ATA PIO and DMA (ata) Missing —
AHCI and SATA (ahci) Missing —
NVMe queues and namespaces (nvme) Missing —
VirtIO Block (virtio-block) Missing —
USB mass storage and host controllers (usb-storage) Missing —
Partition tables and GPT (partitions-gpt) Missing —

ChrisFS structures and recovery

Chapter State Prerequisites
ChrisFS: on-disk structures, allocation and journaling Needs expansion Block storage stack
ChrisFS superblock and geometry (chrisfs-superblock) Missing —
ChrisFS inodes and block indirection (chrisfs-inodes) Missing —
ChrisFS directories and path resolution (chrisfs-directories) Missing —
ChrisFS journaling and recovery (chrisfs-journal) Missing —
ChrisFS cache and allocation (chrisfs-cache) Missing —
ChrisFS consistency checking (chrisfs-fsck) Missing —

08 · From bytes to the desktop

Pixel memory and composition

Chapter State Prerequisites
Pixels, framebuffer memory and presentation Text floor met; technical review required Data representation, memory layout and pointers; Buses, port I/O, MMIO and DMA; Kernel heap, ownership and lifetime
Color formats and alpha (color-formats) Missing —
2D primitives and composition (gfx2d) Missing —
Desktop composition (desktop-compositor) Missing —

Input, windows and applications

Chapter State Prerequisites
Desktop, windows and applications Needs expansion Pixels, framebuffer memory and presentation; ChrisC and the CLVM execution model
Window manager and task model (window-manager) Missing —
Keyboard, mouse and focus (input-routing) Missing —
ChrisEditor architecture (chriseditor) Missing —
ChrisShell architecture (chrisshell) Missing —
File manager architecture (file-manager) Missing —
Mine Chris as a system workload (mine-chris) Missing —
Doom port and native compatibility (doom-port) Missing —

09 · Geometry, rasterization and GPUs

Geometry and sampling

Chapter State Prerequisites
Vector and matrix transformations (matrix-transformations) Missing —
Clipping and projection (clipping) Missing —
Triangle rasterization (triangle-rasterization) Missing —
Depth buffering (depth-buffer) Missing —
Textures and sampling (textures) Missing —
Software 3D: transforms, clipping, rasterization and depth Needs expansion Pixels, framebuffer memory and presentation
Parallel software rasterization (parallel-raster) Missing —

Device transport and commands

Chapter State Prerequisites
VirtIO-GPU and VirGL Needs expansion Buses, port I/O, MMIO and DMA; Software 3D: transforms, clipping, rasterization and depth
VirtIO-GPU transport and resources (virtio-gpu-transport) Missing —
Gfx3D backend-neutral API (gfx3d-api) Missing —
VirGL command stream (virgl-command-stream) Missing —

Programmable shading

Chapter State Prerequisites
Programmable shaders, GLSL subset and CSIR Needs expansion Compiler construction: source text to executable semantics; Software 3D: transforms, clipping, rasterization and depth; VirtIO-GPU and VirGL
GLSL subset frontend (shader-frontend) Missing —
Chris Shader IR (csir) Missing —
TGSI backend (tgsi-backend) Missing —
Software shader backend (software-shader) Missing —
Mine Chris graphics path (mine-graphics) Missing —

10 · Networks and protocol state

Frames, datagrams and streams

Chapter State Prerequisites
Ethernet framing (ethernet) Missing —
IPv4 and addressing (ipv4) Missing —
UDP (udp) Missing —
TCP fundamentals and ChrisOS transfer path (tcp) Missing —

ChrisOS network integration

Chapter State Prerequisites
Network stack and VirtIO networking Needs expansion Buses, port I/O, MMIO and DMA; Interrupts and symmetric multiprocessing
VirtIO-net (virtio-net) Missing —
Socket ownership and API (sockets) Missing —

11 · Emulation and virtualization

Architectural semantics

Chapter State Prerequisites
Machine emulation: architectural state, instruction steps and faults Text floor met; technical review required CPU datapath and instruction-set architecture; Buses, port I/O, MMIO and DMA; Virtual memory and x86-64 page tables; Clocking, propagation delay and the meaning of time
x86 instruction decoding (x86-decoding) Missing —
Architectural flags and arithmetic semantics (emulator-flags) Missing —
Exception delivery in an emulator (emulator-exceptions) Missing —
Guest paging and address translation (emulator-paging) Missing —

ChrisVM platform

Chapter State Prerequisites
ChrisVM and ChrisCPU Needs expansion Machine emulation: architectural state, instruction steps and faults; x86-64 memory, privilege and architectural state
ChrisArchitectureState (chris-architecture-state) Missing —
ChrisMachine lifecycle (chrisvm-machine) Missing —
ChrisVM physical memory map (chrisvm-memory-map) Missing —
ChrisVM I/O bus (chrisvm-io-bus) Missing —
ChrisVM MMIO bus (chrisvm-mmio-bus) Missing —
ChrisVM device model (chrisvm-devices) Missing —
ChrisVM boot protocol (chrisvm-boot) Missing —
ChrisVM tracing and debugger (chrisvm-debugger) Missing —
Determinism and future record/replay (determinism-replay) Missing —

Hardware virtualization

Chapter State Prerequisites
Hardware virtualization and the ChrisHV boundary Needs expansion ChrisVM and ChrisCPU
Intel VMX (vmx) Missing —
AMD SVM (svm) Missing —
EPT and NPT (ept-npt) Missing —

12 · Bootstrap, validation and research

Self-hosting

Chapter State Prerequisites
Self-hosting, bootstrapping and reproducibility Needs expansion KCC, ChrisAsm, ChrisO and ChrisLd; Desktop, windows and applications
SH0-SH6 evidence model (selfhost-levels) Missing —
Compiler staging and convergence (stage-compilers) Missing —
Internally produced kernel (internal-kernel-build) Missing —
Reproducible builds and provenance (reproducible-builds) Missing —

Physical hardware

Chapter State Prerequisites
Installation and physical hardware Needs expansion Block storage stack; From power-on to kstart
GPT and EFI System Partition (gpt-esp) Missing —
Disk-only UEFI boot (uefi-disk-boot) Missing —
Physical hardware profile (hardware-profile) Missing —
Hardware bring-up diagnostics (bringup-diagnostics) Missing —
Driver compatibility evidence (driver-compatibility) Missing —

Experiments and evidence

Chapter State Prerequisites
Validation, evidence classes and reliability Needs expansion Kernel model and trust boundaries
Host-test architecture (host-tests) Missing —
QEMU gate architecture (qemu-gates) Missing —
Physical-hardware validation (hardware-gates) Missing —
Negative testing and fault injection (fault-injection) Missing —
Fuzzing parsers and formats (fuzzing) Missing —
Performance measurement (performance-measurement) Missing —

Specifications and primary references

Chapter State Prerequisites
Specifications, formats and revision policy Needs expansion —
ChrisVM specification (chrisvm-spec) Missing —
ChrisVM boot protocol (chrisvm-boot-spec) Missing —
ChrisO format (chriso-spec) Missing —
ChrisFS format (chrisfs-spec) Missing —
CLVM image and syscall specification (clvm-spec) Missing —
Shader subset and CSIR specification (shader-spec) Missing —
Primary bibliography (bibliography) Missing —

Architecture history

Chapter State Prerequisites
Architecture history and superseded evidence Needs expansion —
Graphics architecture history (graphics-history) Missing —
Native toolchain history (toolchain-history) Missing —
ChrisVM history (chrisvm-history) Missing —

Corpus maintenance

Chapter State Prerequisites
Low-context documentation maintenance Needs expansion —
Source and revision policy (source-policy) Missing —
Documentation schema and templates (documentation-schema) Missing —
Document record ID: learning-path Class: generated-index