Date: 06/05/06
From: Jack Coats ()
Date: 06/05/06
After being around operating systems for to many years, the term
'kernel' is based around what it takes to make a system run. IMHO,
the smallest portion would be the portion of the operating system that
MUST run in kernel (non-memory protected mode). The rest runs in
'user mode'. Depending on the hardware there may be various 'levels'
of this.
From what I can tell, typically, the dispatcher, scheduler, and I/O
queuein and any other real time operations are what belong in the
'kernel'. The dispatcher is what hands off execution to user programs
and manages who run next in the time slices. The scheduler, orders
the queue of things to run for the dispatcher. I/O queue management
handle seeing that reads and writes to
disk/network/monitor/keyboard/etc get done, and the data handed back
to the requesting program. Oh yes, memory allocation and management,
any virtual storage is managed at the kernel level, but virtual memory
is optional, not all systems requre virtual storage.
Does that help?
Quoting Larry Thomas <>:
> Greetings, all!
>
> I am new to the group, so please bear with me as I come up to speed.
>
> I am a graduate student at Vanderbilt, and I'm doing some research on
> the Linux kernel across time. I want to see how certain things in the
> kernel's code base have changed in several versions since 1.0.0. I'm
> getting the code from http://www.linuxhq.com <http://www.linuxhq.com/> .
>
> As such, I'll need to build (but I never plan to install) all of the
> code modules that make up the kernel. This brings up the question of
> "what code (EXACTLY) constitutes 'the kernel'?"
>
> I understand I need to run "make config" to select things like
> architecture, file systems, drivers, etc. This sets a number of flags
> that include certain modules or portions of modules. I plan to use i386
> as the architecture and take the default for all other configuration
> options. In 1.0.0, there WASN'T an architecture choice, so by choosing
> i386, I can go farther back in time.
>
> Then I have to run "make dep" to get the file dependencies right, and
> THEN (finally) I can just "make" the kernel.
>
> I come from the Windows world. So, in an attempt to dip a toe in the
> shallow end, as opposed to diving into the deep end head-first, I tried
> Cygwin as a Linux-ish bridge environment. I see the some of the Linux
> distributions have two source files named the same except for case, and
> in Windows that's a problem, because it's case INsensitive, while Linux
> is case SENSITIVE. So, between THAT fact, which I don't see any way
> around, and the fact that Cygwin is something of a Linux-on-Windows
> kludge to begin with, I figure I'm better off getting into SOME
> real-live Linux environment, at least for the compilation step.
>
> That brings me to Knoppix. I'm currently downloading the 5.0.1 DVD. I
> can boot from the DVD, have the whole Linux environment handy, and then
> re-boot back to good ol' Windows when I'm through, without messing with
> the headaches of creating a dual-boot environment and doing a real-live
> Linux install. I'm a little short on hard drive space anyway, so not
> having to carve out a new partition looks REALLY appealing.
>
> Do any of you have any experience compiling the kernel from source? Any
> tips, gotchas, or other advice you might have?
>
> When I first tried this with Linux 1.0.0 under Cygwin, gcc died during
> "make dep" because serial.c and buffer.c both contain "#ifdef 0", and
> the compiler wants a real identifier NAME there. I don't know if older
> versions of gcc would allow constants on an #ifdef or not. These are
> the kinds of questions I'll probably have along the way. If any of you
> are experienced with the code and building the kernel, I'd really like
> the opportunity to pick your brains as I go through this project.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Larry Thomas
> Vanderbilt University
>
>
>
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