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Operating System - Linux
Linux is one of popular version of UNIX operating System. It is open source as its
source code is freely available. It is free to use. Linux was designed considering
UNIX compatibility. Its functionality list is quite similar to that of UNIX.
Components of Linux System
Linux Operating System has primarily three components
Kernel − Kernel is the core part of Linux. It is responsible for all major
activities of this operating system. It consists of various modules and it
interacts directly with the underlying hardware. Kernel provides the required
abstraction to hide low level hardware details to system or application
programs.
System Library − System libraries are special functions or programs using
which application programs or system utilities accesses Kernel's features.
These libraries implement most of the functionalities of the operating
system and do not requires kernel module's code access rights.
System Utility − System Utility programs are responsible to do
specialized, individual level tasks.
Kernel Mode vs User Mode
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Kernel component code executes in a special privileged mode called kernel mode
with full access to all resources of the computer. This code represents a single
process, executes in single address space and do not require any context switch
and hence is very efficient and fast. Kernel runs each processes and provides
system services to processes, provides protected access to hardware to processes.
Support code which is not required to run in kernel mode is in System Library. User
programs and other system programs works in User Mode which has no access to
system hardware and kernel code. User programs/ utilities use System libraries to
access Kernel functions to get system's low level tasks.
Basic Features
Following are some of the important features of Linux Operating System.
Portable − Portability means software can works on different types of
hardware in same way. Linux kernel and application programs supports their
installation on any kind of hardware platform.
Open Source − Linux source code is freely available and it is community
based development project. Multiple teams work in collaboration to
enhance the capability of Linux operating system and it is continuously
evolving.
Multi-User − Linux is a multiuser system means multiple users can access
system resources like memory/ ram/ application programs at same time.
Multiprogramming − Linux is a multiprogramming system means multiple
applications can run at same time.
Hierarchical File System − Linux provides a standard file structure in
which system files/ user files are arranged.
Shell − Linux provides a special interpreter program which can be used to
execute commands of the operating system. It can be used to do various
types of operations, call application programs. etc.
Security − Linux provides user security using authentication features like
password protection/ controlled access to specific files/ encryption of data.
Architecture
The following illustration shows the architecture of a Linux system −
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The architecture of a Linux System consists of the following layers −
Hardware layer − Hardware consists of all peripheral devices (RAM/ HDD/
CPU etc).
Kernel − It is the core component of Operating System, interacts directly
with hardware, provides low level services to upper layer components.
Shell − An interface to kernel, hiding complexity of kernel's functions from
users. The shell takes commands from the user and executes kernel's
functions.
Utilities − Utility programs that provide the user most of the functionalities
of an operating systems.
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