Key Points#

The kernel is a critical component in a system. You may hear it being referred to now and again and you'll now have a high level understanding of what it is and what it's for.

In the next few sections we'll cover some kernel related tasks like memory and process management. I've broken these up into their own little chapters so you can take a bit at a time.

Memory Magament

The kernel manages the RAM inside of our system and makes it available to the system to consume. What the kernel generally does is create a table that represents what process has what memory provisioned. When processes request more (or less) memory, the kernel takes care of providing it with the memory it needs.

Without the kernel managing memory, it would be absolute chaos and you'd have processes writing over the top of each other, which would corrupt their functionality and cause them to crash.

Resource Management

The kernel is also responsible for managing all the other resources available to the system, making them available for users and processes to consume.

Device Management

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System Calls

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Now check your understanding of the above items.