What is the difference between the operating system and the kernel?
Operating SystemKernelOperating System Problem Overview
I do not understand the difference between operating system and kernel. Can someone please explain it?
Operating System Solutions
Solution 1 - Operating System
The kernel is part of the operating system and closer to the hardware it provides low level services like:
- device driver
- process management
- memory management
- system calls
An operating system also includes applications like the user interface (shell, gui, tools, and services).
Solution 2 - Operating System
The difference between an operating system and a kernel:
The kernel is a part of an operating system. The operating system is the software package that communicates directly to the hardware and our application. The kernel is the lowest level of the operating system. The kernel is the main part of the operating system and is responsible for translating the command into something that can be understood by the computer. The main functions of the kernel are:
- memory management
- network management
- device driver
- file management
- process management
Solution 3 - Operating System
Basically the Kernel is the interface between hardware (devices which are available in Computer) and Application software is like MS Office, Visual Studio, etc.
If I answer "what is an OS?" then the answer could be the same. Hence the kernel is the part & core of the OS.
The very sensitive tasks of an OS like memory management, I/O management, process management are taken care of by the kernel only.
So the ultimate difference is:
- Kernel is responsible for Hardware level interactions at some specific range. But the OS is like hardware level interaction with full scope of computer.
- Kernel triggers SystemCalls to tell the OS that this resource is available at this point of time. The OS is responsible to handle those system calls in order to utilize the resource.