Linux Kernel

Intuition

An interface between Computer Hardware and The processes

I always think kernel as the orchestrator of computer resources. It will manage the resources and provide an interface to the processes that are running.

1. Memory Management
2. Process Management
3. Device Drivers
4. System calls

Memory Management

1. Kernel Space
   • A process running in the kernel space has unrestricted access to the hardware
   • eg - Kernel Code, Device Drivers, Kernel Modules
   • The memory is simply divided into kernel and user space - as all bits and its context lives in memory - The kernel as a program gives you unrestricted access to the hardware resources when you are a kernel space program.
2. User Space
   • The application programs get access to data by making special request called system calls.
   • Such as when your go code says os.Open(file), it is simply making a system call.
   • eg Interrupts, GNU applications, basically everything except the kernel space applications