The author shares their experience of upstreaming a patch to handle hotkeys on a 2005 Fujitsu Lifebook S2110 while exploring the Linux kernel. They detail the process of identifying the relevant driver for the hotkeys, troubleshooting issues with key events not firing in Player mode, and examining the kernel's ACPI interactions to resolve the problem.

The article explores a DBMS interview question posed by Joran Dirk Greef regarding the behavior of Direct I/O operations in Linux when using the O_DIRECT flag. It examines the constraints of aligned reads and the implications of bypassing the page cache, ultimately discussing the expected return values from the read(2) system call under these conditions. The author shares insights into filesystem behavior and kernel source code relevant to the topic.

The article explains the Linux boot process, detailing the sequence of events from when the power button is pressed to the execution of the first line of C code within the Linux kernel. It covers the roles of the CPU, firmware (BIOS and UEFI), and the bootloader (GRUB) in facilitating the transition to the operating system. The piece emphasizes the technical intricacies involved in initializing hardware and preparing the system for the Linux kernel to take over.