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What is the difference between the operating system and the kernel? [closed]

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What is the difference between operating system and kernel?

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.

What is the difference between OS and kernel in Linux?

The Linux® kernel is the main component of a Linux operating system (OS) and is the core interface between a computer's hardware and its processes. It communicates between the 2, managing resources as efficiently as possible.

Is operating system a kernel?

The kernel is the essential center of a computer operating system (OS). It is the core that provides basic services for all other parts of the OS. It is the main layer between the OS and hardware, and it helps with process and memory management, file systems, device control and networking.

Why is an operating system called a kernel?

It is the primary interface between the hardware and the processes of a computer. The kernel connects these two in order to adjust resources as effectively as possible. It is named a kernel because it operates inside the OS, just like a seed inside a hard shell.


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).


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:

  1. memory management
  2. network management
  3. device driver
  4. file management
  5. process management

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:

  1. Kernel is responsible for Hardware level interactions at some specific range. But the OS is like hardware level interaction with full scope of computer.
  2. 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.

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