What is the kernel and how does it work?

The kernel or kernel is the central part of an operating system and is the one in charge of making all the secure communication between the software and the computer hardware. The kernel kernel is the most important part of the Unix operating system and its derivatives, like Linux and all the distributions that depend on it.

Index of contents

How does the kernel work?

• Now we know that the kernel allows communication between the software and the physical devices of a computer, both the internal hardware and the motherboard, processor, memory and storage units, even those that are considered peripherals, such as the mouse, keyboard, monitor, USB keys, cameras, phones, etc. In addition to this, the kernel kernel must also manage RAM memory. The memory must be used efficiently, dividing it between the different services and applications so that everything works smoothly, since a current operating system is 'multitasking', which is why several applications and services are running all the time at the same time Like the memory, the processor must also be managed by the Linux kernel. We currently have processors with multiple cores and threads, so the kernel must divide the tasks that the computer does among all the CPU cores so that those tasks are carried out correctly without overlapping one another.

Linux kernel vs Windows kernel

Although Windows also has its own kernel, there is a fundamental difference between it and Linux. While the Windows kernel is completely airtight and nobody can modify it, the Linux kernel is open source, so anyone can make the modifications they want, this allows different Linux distributions to exist.

Your advantages in Linux

One of the advantages of the Linux kernel is that it is possible to update it without affecting the rest of the operating system, with a couple of commands (using the root user) in Terminal we would be achieving this in a couple of minutes or even easier. through the Software Center , although this depends on the distribution we choose. Updating only the system kernel, we would have not only a more stable, also safer and faster computer, all in several minutes.

This is basically a kernel and what it does in the Linux operating system, no more, no less. I hope you have resolved your doubts and we will see you next time.