The role of the Linux kernel
With an impressive numbers of code lines, the Linux kernel is one of the most prominent open source projects and at the same time, the largest available one. The Linux kernel constitutes a piece of software that helps with the interfacing of hardware, being the lowest-level code available that runs in everyone's Linux operating system. It is used as an interface for other user space applications, as described in the following diagram:
The main roles of the Linux kernel are as follows:
- It provides a set of portable hardware and architecture APIs that offer user space applications the possibility to use necessary hardware resources
- It helps with the management of hardware resources, such as a CPU, input/output peripherals, and memory
- It is used for the management of concurrent accesses and the usage of necessary hardware resources by different applications.
To make sure that the preceding roles are well understood, an example will be very useful. Let's consider...
