Operating Systems - 3

In case you missed part-1 and 2, below are the links for them

http://systemspro.blogspot.com/2011/06/operating-systems-win-or-loss-of.html

http://systemspro.blogspot.com/2011/06/operating-systems-2.html

Also, the code for different problems related to operating systems, that you come across in your under graduate studies, is made available in the link below

http://operatingsystemscode.blogspot.com/

Today, let's discuss about Kernel

Kernel is a piece of software, that generally comes bundled with operating system and is more closer to the hardware. It provides an abstract layer for the user programs to interact with the hardware and allocate apropos resources to them. In short, it is the heart of any operating system.

Windows operating systems use Windows NT Kernel which was developed and released along with NT based OS in the year 1993, that made windows, a more generic player in the operating systems field. It's success was so huge, that Microsoft never dared to remove "NT" from it's OS names. But in 2000, with the release of Windows 2000, it dropped NT, but gave it a tagline "Built on NT technology". With XP, it dropped that tag also. Presently windows operating systems like Windows 7 and Windows Vista use a hybrid version of the same kernel.

Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Red hat use Linux Kernel, that was first developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991. No one thought that a college kid could invent it. Even the professor who taught him, damned it. And the remaining story, need not be told..

Another Linux kernel called "Hurd" was in the development stages, before 1991, but it  never reached it's completion due to the invention of Linux