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Note On Operating System and Kernel

The document discusses kernels, operating systems, and types of kernels. It defines a kernel as the central component of an operating system that acts as an interface between hardware and software. Kernels can be classified as monolithic or microkernels. Monolithic kernels package all core system services into a single module, while microkernels move many services to user space to run as servers and reduce kernel size. Linux uses a modular monolithic kernel approach.

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166 views3 pages

Note On Operating System and Kernel

The document discusses kernels, operating systems, and types of kernels. It defines a kernel as the central component of an operating system that acts as an interface between hardware and software. Kernels can be classified as monolithic or microkernels. Monolithic kernels package all core system services into a single module, while microkernels move many services to user space to run as servers and reduce kernel size. Linux uses a modular monolithic kernel approach.

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obinna benjamin
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© © All Rights Reserved
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What is Operating System, Kernel and Types

of kernels
1. What Is Kernel?
A kernel is a central component of an operating system. It acts as an interface
between the user applications and the hardware. The sole aim of the kernel is to
manage the communication between the software (user level applications) and the
hardware (CPU, disk memory etc). The main tasks of the kernel are :

 Process management
 Device management
 Memory management
 Interrupt handling
 I/O communication
 File system...etc..

2. Is LINUX A Kernel Or An Operating System?


Well, there is a difference between kernel and OS. Kernel as described above is the
heart of OS which manages the core features of an OS while if some useful
applications and utilities are added over the kernel, then the complete package
becomes an OS. So, it can easily be said that an operating system consists of a
kernel space and a user space.

So, we can say that Linux is a kernel as it does not include applications like file-
system utilities, windowing systems and graphical desktops, system administrator
commands, text editors, compilers etc. So, various companies add these kind of
applications over linux kernel and provide their operating system like ubuntu, suse,
centOS, redHat etc.

3. Types Of Kernels

Kernels may be classified mainly in two categories

1. Monolithic
2. Micro Kernel

1 Monolithic Kernels

Earlier in this type of kernel architecture, all the basic system services like process
and memory management, interrupt handling etc were packaged into a single
module in kernel space. This type of architecture led to some serious drawbacks
like 1) Size of kernel, which was huge. 2)Poor maintainability, which means bug
fixing or addition of new features resulted in recompilation of the whole kernel
which could consume hours

In a modern day approach to monolithic architecture, the kernel consists of


different modules which can be dynamically loaded and un-loaded. This modular
approach allows easy extension of OS's capabilities. With this approach,
maintainability of kernel became very easy as only the concerned module needs to
be loaded and unloaded every time there is a change or bug fix in a particular
module. So, there is no need to bring down and recompile the whole kernel for a
smallest bit of change. Also, stripping of kernel for various platforms (say for
embedded devices etc) became very easy as we can easily unload the module that
we do not want.

Linux follows the monolithic modular approach

2 Microkernels

This architecture majorly caters to the problem of ever growing size of kernel code
which we could not control in the monolithic approach. This architecture allows
some basic services like device driver management, protocol stack, file system etc
to run in user space. This reduces the kernel code size and also increases the
security and stability of OS as we have the bare minimum code running in kernel.
So, if suppose a basic service like network service crashes due to buffer overflow,
then only the networking service's memory would be corrupted, leaving the rest of
the system still functional.

In this architecture, all the basic OS services which are made part of user space are
made to run as servers which are used by other programs in the system through
inter process communication (IPC). eg: we have servers for device drivers, network
protocol stacks, file systems, graphics, etc. Microkernel servers are essentially
daemon programs like any others, except that the kernel grants some of them
privileges to interact with parts of physical memory that are otherwise off limits to
most programs. This allows some servers, particularly device drivers, to interact
directly with hardware. These servers are started at the system start-up.

So, what the bare minimum that microKernel architecture recommends in kernel
space?

 Managing memory protection


 Process scheduling
 Inter Process communication (IPC)
Apart from the above, all other basic services can be made part of user space and
can be run in the form of servers.
Source: http://www.go4expert.com/articles/operating-kernel-types-kernels-t24793/

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