Tuesday, February 12, 2013

difference between a monolithic kernel and a microkernel

Monolithic kernel has simple design. Monolithic kernel is a single large processes running entirely in a single address space. It is a single static binariy file. All kernel services exist and execute in kernel address space. The kernel can invoke functions directly. The examples of monolithic kernel based OSs are Linux, Unix.

In Microkernels, the kernel is broken down into separate processes, known as servers. Some of the servers run in kernel space and some run in user-space. All servers are kept separate and run in different address spaces.The communication in microkernels is done via message passing. The servers communicate through IPC (Interprocess Communication). Servers invoke "services" from each other by sending messages. The separation has advantage that if one server fails other server can still work efficiently. The example of microkernel based OS are Mac OS X and Windows NT.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_monolithic_kernel_and_a_microkernel#ixzz17ay02joZ

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